Brugman, Alyssa. Walking naked.BRUGMAN, Alyssa. Walking naked. Random House, Laurel Leaf. 185p. c2002.0-440-23832-3. $5.99. S In this powerful Australian story Australian Story is a weekly biography program, produced and broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Australian Story has covered many people from diverse backgrounds and reputations. about peer pressure, friendship, and difficult choices, Megan Tuw is forced to look at some unpleasant truths about herself and her friends. When the story begins, Megan is part of a popular clique (mathematics) clique - A maximal totally connected subgraph. Given a graph with nodes N, a clique C is a subset of N where every node in C is directly connected to every other node in C (i.e. C is totally connected), and C contains all such nodes (C is maximal). of girls who think of no one but themselves and their activities. As Megan's friends throw themselves into a demonstration in support of "nude running" or streaking, as it used to be called, she is not sure she wants to join them. Then she gets detention time, and joins a girl in detention who has been the school "victim," Perdita Wiguiggan. Megan's group has always laughed at Perdita, called her "Freak," and bullied bul·ly 1 n. pl. bul·lies 1. A person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people. 2. A hired ruffian; a thug. 3. A pimp. 4. her in unspeakable ways. When Megan gets to know her in detention, she realizes that Perdita is not a bad person. Perdita is into poetry, so there are snippets of poems throughout the story, which help to tie it together. However, Megan is torn between wanting to befriend be·friend tr.v. be·friend·ed, be·friend·ing, be·friends To behave as a friend to. befriend Verb to become a friend to Verb 1. Perdita and wanting to be a regular part of the clique. Because of this dichotomy di·chot·o·my n. pl. di·chot·o·mies 1. Division into two usually contradictory parts or opinions: "the dichotomy of the one and the many" Louis Auchincloss. , Megan sometimes adds to the humiliation that Perdita suffers, at times not even realizing that she does so. When Perdita commits suicide, Megan is devastated dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. , and realizes that there was much more she could have done to help her. Megan works through her guilt and trauma, and matures in the process. There are sub-themes here of physical and mental abuse, and denial by victims and observers. This powerful book will be read by many teens who will identify with the characters in some way, and hopefully come away wiser from the reading of it. Nancy Chrismer, Libn., Juniata HS, Mifflintown, PA |
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