Teen Fiction - Choices & Transitions, Teen Fiction - Girls & Young Women, Teen Fiction - Entertainment & Arts

Crystal

Name: Crystal
Author: Walter Dean Myers
ISBN: 9780064473125

by Walter Dean Myers

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Overview

Sixteen-year-old Crystal knows she's blessed. She is drop-dead gorgeous and in the beginning stages of a glamorous career as a model in New York City. At first, modeling is exciting. But soon, her life becomes less and less about her, and more and more about her body. Crystal wonders if her new life is worth giving up everything — her friends, her beliefs, and her self-respect.

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

Myers penetrates the modeling world in this tale of a 16-year-old professional model living in New York City, first published in 1987, who learns some tough truths about what it takes. Ages 12-up. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

About the Author, Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers is a New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author who has garnered much respect and admiration for his fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people. Winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award, he is considered one of the preeminent writers for children. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his family.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

School Library Journal

Gr 8-12 At 16, Crystal Brown is en route to stardom as a black fashion model. The world of money, glamour, fame, and celebrities excites and disturbs her. Her career demands increasing time away from family, friends, school, and normal adolescent concerns. As a model, Crystal confronts a temperamental photographer, sexual pressures, and a demanding agent. While Crystal's mother vicariously craves her daughter's success, her father's pride is tempered with protectiveness. In the end, Crystal is shocked into a career decision by the suicide of a once marketable model friend. In Crystal, Myers has created a beautiful but believable teenage heroine who makes a stand for personal integrity in a competitive world. Although certain characters and situations fulfill modeling world stereotypes, Myers' knack for vivid description and dialogue shatters many illusions of stardom. Adolescents who dream of modeling and who may envy Crystal's natural gifts will find in her forthright story certain realities that are often ignored. Gerry Larson, Chewning Junior High School, Durham, N.C.