Chris Dombrowski is the author of The River You Touch: Making a Life on Moving Water . He is also...
Slant
Lauren, a Korean American adoptee, is best friends with the prettiest girl in school. Julie has an endless amount of confidence. Lauren doesn’t. It’s not that she wants to look like everyone else in her suburban Connecticut school—she’d just be happy if Sean, the cutest boy in her class, noticed her. And she could do without the names, too. Like “Slant.”
When Sean slips one day and calls her by the taunt, she knows she has to take matters into her own hands. Using her life savings, Lauren decides to undergo a special eye surgery that will deepen the crease of her eyelid so she just blends in. After she convinces her father to agree, Lauren learns a secret about her dead mother and finds herself faced with a dilemma: should she get the operation that might make her more confident and well-liked, or can she find that confidence within?
Sensitive and beautifully written, Laura E. Williams’s novel offers a powerful lesson to young readers whose self-esteem depends too much on how they look.
ISBN:
9781571316820 Publish Date:
10/01/2008
Pages:
168
Size:
5.19 × 8 × 0.5 in
Weight:
6.7 oz
Like this book? Sign up for occasional updates
Praise and Prizes
“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but, as any middle-school veteran will attest, a name can hurt far worse. Slant is an important reminder to young readers that name-calling can have serious consequences.”
Natasha Friend
author of Perfect
“Laura E. Williams tackles the young adult issues of self-esteem and standards of beauty with both grit and grace.”
Korean Quarterly
“The characters are exceptionally well drawn, and the friendship between Julie and Lauren is not only believable, featuring humor, conflict, and true wit, but also captures both girls’ gains in maturity.”
School Library Journal
“A story about friendship and identity that informs and entertains—Laura E. Williams presents an important lesson in a language and style that young readers can easily embrace.”
Linda Watanabe McFerrin
author of Dead Love
“Refreshingly, [Lauren] develops her self-assurance through her own independent maturation, without overwhelming adult influence. . . . Her budding self-acceptance is subtly nuanced, adding depth to a contemporary topic with a gentle touch.”
Kirkus
You Might Enjoy
Based on this book, we recommend you try…
It is 1942. Korinna is an active member of the local Nazi youth group. When she discovers that her parents—who are secretly members of an underground resistance group—are sheltering a family of Jewish refugees behind her bedroom wall, she is...
Skinhead. Neo-Nazi. Lexi Jordan knows the names her friends use to talk about themselves, but she isn’t quite sure what they mean. She knows the tattoo on her head and her heavy boots are part of belonging—and Lexi wants to belong. But she begins...
Marena struggles to remember what life was like before the Zero Tolerance Party installed listening devices in every home and eliminated difference. But when the new Minister of Education cracks down in her school, Marena decides it’s finally...
Strange things begin to happen after eleven-year-old Sebby finds a secret cave behind his home: he falls ill, his family’s chickens disappear, and he finds a special pair of eyeglasses that show him a world where colors come alive and fly through...