Sones, Sonya. (2004). What My Mother Doesn't Know. New York: Simon and Schuster, 272 pp.

Grade Range: 6-9

Genre: poetry

Summary and Critique

Through a series of poems, the teenage narrator, Sophie, tells the story of her first experiences with love. Focusing on the universal experiences of adolescence, she discusses her relationships with family, friends, and boys as she struggles to reach adulthood. Sophie moves through her first relationships with the support of her childhood friends Grace and Rachel, who are also experiencing their new loves. The beginning section of the book describes the teen's intensely romantic relationship with her first love, Dylan. When Dylan asks her not to mention that she's Jewish to his prejudiced mother, Sophie is heartbroken. Her relationship with Dylan morphs into a friendship after she meets her second love, Chaz, in a chat room on the Internet. Sophie's cyber love is short lived and gives way to a more meaningful relationship with the unpopular and often bullied Robin Murphy. In addition to the stress of maintaining relationships with friends and boyfriends, Sophie struggles to understand and be understood by her mother, an overly emotional soap-opera addict. The distance that she feels from her family mirrors her feelings of isolation from the rest of society.

Sonya Sones created in Sophie an easily accessible character for young adolescents. Readers can identify with the issues the protagonist faces, as they are all universal experiences involving family, friendships, love, race, gender, class, and culture. Sones also writes in narrative poetry, which is easy and fun to read. This type of writing is especially accessible for reluctant readers. Unfortunately, the book lacks a male point of view. Readers only see the perspective of the female characters. This book needs to be supplemented with other material that provides a male perspective.

Awards

A Junior Library Guild Selection

International Reading Association Young Adult's Choice 2003

2001 Booklist Editor's Choice

American Library Association 2002 Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

American Library Association 2002 Best Book for Young Adults 

Themes/Topics

Families

Friends and Enemies

Generations

Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Challenges and Triumphs

Love, Sex, and Romance

Author/Illustrator/Editor Information:

Sonya Sones began her career as an animator, then later worked as a film editor on many popular TV shows and movies. After the birth of her two children, she began her writing career. Her first book of narrative poetry, Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy, is an autobiographical account of her older sister's battle with mental illness. Sones enjoyed writing about her first experiences with love so much that she decided to write What My Mother Doesn't Know.

For more information on Sonya Sones and her writings:

http://www.sonyasones.com This web site provides additional biographical information about Sonya Sones and her writings, including descriptions about each book and awards they received.

Media Connections

Movies/Documentaries

I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) A story about a young Jewish girl with a distant family. The young girl struggles to become an adult in an anti-Semitic environment while juggling relationships with family, friends and a special boy.

5 Girls (2001) This documentary aired on PBS on October 2, 2001. It focuses on five young women from diverse backgrounds. The uniting element of this documentary is the need that the girls feel to have connected relationships with their families.

Anywhere But Here (1999) This film primarily deals with the conflicts that occur between middle-aged mothers and adolescent daughters. The mother and daughter in this film have a loving relationship that is challenged when they move across the country. The young woman makes friends with a group of girls from school. She also has a romantic relationship with physical intimacy.

Real Women Have Curves (2002) A young Mexican-American woman struggles to balance her family obligations with her studies in school and her romantic relationship. The protagonist's tumultuous relationship with her mother dominates the film.

The Little Mermaid (1989) This animated film from Disney focuses on a young female character that falls in love and loses the support of her family in her time of need.

Little Women (1994) This is a timeless movie of four sisters'coming of age in the mid 1800s. The sisters are courted by young men and attend dances and social gatherings. The film also reveals a close and open relationship between the mother and her daughters.

Summer Catch (2001) This movie addresses the male aspect of coming of age. Ryan Dunne, an underprivileged adolescent male struggles with relationships with his friends, father, and girlfriend. The young couple faces opposition from their parents who disapprove of their relationship.

Television

Seventh Heaven – any episode (family relationships, dating, love)

State of Grace – This series discussed the coming of age of a young Jewish girl. It discusses on her friendship with a Catholic girl, her various crushes, and her relationship with her family.

Music/Audio Recordings

"Head Over Feet" Lyrics by Alanis Morissette. From Jagged Little Pill. 1995 (song about love, especially the overwhelming aspect of young love).

Online Resources

http://www.gurl.com/ This site contains entertaining articles about all things girlish. It is especially heavy on labels and cliques that manifest during adolescence.

http://www.gravityteen.com/ Personal stories and quotes written by Teens about their lives. The stories focus on many of the universal experiences addressed in What My Mother Doesn't Know, including family, friends, love, clothes, and school. Teens can write their own stories or quotes and publish them on the Internet through this site.

http://www.netpoets.com/poems/teenlove/ This web page has many poems about love from an adolescent's perspective. The poems focus on the intensity of experiences with first loves.

http://www.jewishbktown.com/ This site has a comprehensive list of books by Jewish authors. Many of the books deal specifically with Jewish culture. The site offers a section on Jewish books for middle grades and Teens . You can read sample chapters of many of the books online at this page.

http://www.teenreads.com Contains information on a variety of books for teenagers. It also has an option that allows you to search for specific themes on the Web site such as family, love, or clothing.

http://www.wholefamily.com/aboutteensnow/index.html This website has an entire section devoted to Teens and the issues that they face daily. There is whole section on family relationships that indexes a variety of issues that Teens face when dealing with family members. There are also sections that discuss school, food, clothes, and sexuality.

http://www.jvibe.com This Web site is devoted entirely to Jewish Teens . It contains mostly news stories about current events and popular culture. The site also has message boards where Teens can discuss issues that interest them.

Related Texts

Cisneros, Sandra. (1991). House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Press. 110pp. A fictional novel that discusses the life of Esperanza, a young Hispanic girl, and her experiences growing up in the poor area of Chicago. Esperanza describes relationships with family members and friends, school environment, and first experiences with boys. A great tool to use for contrasting Sophie's adolescent experiences with Esperanza's experiences.

Gallo, Donald R. (1993). Join In: Multiethnic Short Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults. New York. Delacorte Press, 256pp. This collection of short stories offers a widely diverse group of authors and experiences. The short stories tackle such issues as family, friendship, love, and rejection. The characters in these stories are as diverse culturally and economically as the authors who created them.

Tan, Amy. (1989). The Joy Luck Club. New York: Putnam. 288pp. This novel about four sets of mothers and daughters who struggle to understand each other explores the generation gap in the context of Asian-American culture. For example, one mother in the novel represents the stereotypical Asian-American woman who longs for a daughter who is a prodigy at something. She attempts to force her beliefs on her daughter, who is equally bull-headed. The mother then uses guilt to punish her daughter when she disappoints her, much like Sophie's mother uses guilt to punish her.

Samet, Yehudis. (1996). The Other Side of the Story: Giving People the Benefit of the Doubt—Stories and Strategies. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 318pp. This book discusses the Jewish teachings that encourage people to look past the surface and discover a person's virtues that lay beyond appearance. The book comprises several stories that encourage us to work to understand people on a more personal level. These ideas mirror the lesson that Sophie learns in What My Mother Doesn't Know. Sophie learns to look past Murphy's exterior and get to know the person on the inside, and when she does this she finds that she loves him.

Janeczko, Paul B. (1991). Preposterous: Poems of Youth. New York. Orchard Books, 134pp. This poetry anthology discusses a variety of themes tackled in What My Mother Doesn't Know, including love, family problems, friendship, religion, physical affection, and secrets. The anthology includes many acclaimed poets such as Langston Hughes and Anne Sexton.

Mackler, Carolyn. (2000). Love and Other Four-Letter Words. New York: Delcorte, 247pp. A book about a teenaged girl who discovers that a person's character is strengthened in the fires. She grows into adulthood while suffering through her parents'divorce, her mother's emotional imbalances, and her own roller coaster of emotion resulting from young love.

Sotto, Gary. (1999). Nerdlandia. New York: Paperstar. A play about an unpopular young man and a "cool" young woman who fall in love. The two change themselves, each becoming more like the other so they can have a relationship. The themes of love and self-sacrifice complement What My Mother Doesn't Know. The labels that adolescents use to define one another is another prominent theme in the play.

Teaching Ideas

(1) "Through the Character's Eyes" After students have read the majority of the text, have them chose a character from the work. Instruct the students to think of ten adjectives that they can use to define the personality of that character. Students should write the ten adjectives down on paper without sharing their work with anyone else. After all students have completed their lists, have students display their work in the classroom where it is visible to all students. Students try to determine which characters are being described using only the list of adjectives provided.

[Summarized from "Through the Character's Eyes" by John Forsyth in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. October 1992, page 2.]

(2)"Recording a Typical Family Meal" Students will chose a typical day of the week and take notes during a family meal at their house. Students will then write a narrative detailing the event. Prompt students by giving them several questions about the people in attendance, the setting, the food, the activities, and the conversation. Encourage students to closely observe the family meal and pay strict attention to details. This activity should help students learn to develop and use their own unique voices in their writings. [Summarized from "Recording a Typical Family Meal" by Robert H. Rempe in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. March 1992, page 4.]

(3)"It's How You Say It" In this activity, students learn about the importance of how reading a text can change the meaning of a text. Students learn that they can manipulate meaning in texts through emphasis, inflection and tone of voice, and volume. Have students perform two exercises. In the first exercise, have them read a line of text several times while changing the emphasized word each time. Then discuss how the meaning changed with each reading. In the second exercise, have students read a line of text several times, each time reading with a different emotion or tone. For example, you can have students try to read as though they feel angry, sad, and frightened. After the readings, ask students again how the meaning of the sentence changed with each reading. To conclude, have the students pair up and try the reading activities with lines from the works they are currently reading.

[Summarized from "It's How You Say It" by Peggy Stark in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. November 1987, page 6.]

(Review written by Roxann Patrick and edited by Jennifer E. Moore)