Speak

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Scholastic, 1999. Print. 

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2000 The Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature Honor Book

1999 National Book Award finalist
Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist
Golden Kite Award
ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults
ALA Quick Pick
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
Booklist Top Ten First Novel of 1999
BCCB Blue Ribbon Book
SLJ Best Book of the Year
Horn Book Fanfare Title

Annotation: Anderson’s highly awarded first Young Adult novel tells the story of Melinda, a young girl who refuses to speak after a traumatic event.

Book talk: Being a freshman in high school is tough for most teenagers, but for Melinda it is especially difficult. She is a social pariah, shunned by friends that she has known since childhood after calling the police during a party over the summer. Teachers don’t like her much either. Her parents spend most of their time fighting rather than paying attention to their daughter. But Melinda has a secret, a secret so devastating that she chooses to remain silent rather than talk about the night that shattered her world.

This book is a force, sometimes humorous, mostly devastating. The reader practically wants to shout at the unsympathetic people that surround Melinda because unlike her peers, teachers, and parents, we know what happened to her. However, we get the pleasure of seeing Miranda triumph, emerge slowly from her self-imposed exile, fight back, and eventually Speak.

ISBN:  0439456177 

Subject Headings: High School – Fiction, Schools – Fiction, Emotional Problems – Fiction, Rape – Fiction