Coping with Changing Schools

School Library Journal

Gr 8-12-Smith offers some good advice and well-meaning reassurance in an attempt to ease the stress and tension students feel when changing schools, classmates, and teachers. However, the use of dated dialogue and cliched situations may turn off YAs. Other books in the series are more straightforward, presenting facts, advice, and guidelines for problem-solving, while this one is patronizing and out of touch. Readers may be better served by Barthe DeClements's novel I Never Asked You to Understand Me (Viking, 1986), which approaches the subject in a more sympathetic and interesting manner.- Julie Halverstadt, Douglas Public Library District, Castle Rock, CO