Reviews for The Truth about Truman School

The average rating for The Truth about Truman School based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-12-08 00:00:00 Wasyl Cymbal The Truth about Truman School was a total surprise. I bought the book at the school's Book Fair for two reasons. It was marked $2.50 (and well within my budget) and the back cover said that it was about teens who decide to tell the truth about life in middle school, not the expurgated lies adults revel in. Hint: When you get "nothing" as an answer to "what did you do at school today," you have been given the adult-appropriate response. There really are things you don't want to know about your teen's life. Even though I recommended the book to a couple of students, I really didn't have high expectations, based on the selling price. I was wrong. Now, I may get a few phone calls or messages of concern about the "lesbian" references, but, frankly, if you haven't talked to your kid about lesbianism or homosexuality or gay feelings by the time your child is in middle school, then you really haven't talked to your kid about sex yet. It's time for the talk and this book is a good start. But this book isn't about lesbianism (or sex) at all. It's about cyberbullying and using a computer responsibly and friendships and popularity and real life in a real middle school. It's told from multiple viewpoints so it's not as girly as the cover makes it out to be even though, from my experience, the majority of cyberbullying occurs to and from the female population. Some really good discussions could come out of this book and I would highly recommend it to parent-child book clubs. I also recommend that any parent of a middle school student read this. I'm definitely going to recommend it to others. I may even buy enough copies for a class set... or at least a small group for discussion.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-11-16 00:00:00 Alicja Bienkowska I read The Truth About Truman School because of my middle school's librarian desire to use it as a school-wide text. Unfortunately, I couldn't whole-heartedly offer my support of the novel. While it is a very (very) realistic and bold look at the ramifications of cyber-bullying, the extent of the bullying is too intense for younger middle school readers. Specifically, the inclusion of the gay-bashing in the cyber-bullying is used gratuitously for pure shock value and harshness. Dori Hillestad Butler never offers any contradiction to the students' terrible homophobic behavior; she allows the insults to linger and fester, masquerading as mere bully-fodder. To put it plainly - because of the way homophobia is handled in the novel, my students wouldn't view it as absolutely horrible as it actually is. Homophobia to Dori Hillestad Butler is no more disgusting than calling a child fat. So yes, this book is painfully realistic, which is a positive. Unfortunately, unless the reader is mature enough to understand the disgustingness of the characters actions, then the reader may not fully understand the weight of it.