Teen Talk: Insight on Issues That Matter To Teens and the Adults Who Care About Them

Book excerpt: When Maria Susan Proulx started writing her Teen Talk column for a local newspaper, she was just twelve years old. Her parents teased her, saying that teens didn't read the paper; she was communicating with her peers in a medium read by forty-year-olds. But that didn't stop Maria. Soon, she learned that teens and parents were discussing each of her columns over dinner, instead of sitting in silence, absorbed by their phones. Fellow students came up to her in the hallway at school, telling her that her column on mental health gave them the courage to face their own struggles. Teachers told her that they cut her column out of the paper and posted it in their classrooms, to encourage conversations with students about tough topics. Emboldened, Maria kept writing-and five years later, her columns have become this book. Teen Talk: Insight on Issues that Matter to Teens and the Adults Who Care About Them is a collection of essays on activism, college acceptance, gender identity, body positivity, immigration, blended families, rejection, dating, illness, homework, and addiction-but it's also so much more. It's a bridge between teens and the adults in their lives, a way of tearing down barriers and building common understanding. Through humor, honesty, and insight, Teen Talk offers a space for conversation, reflection, and-above all-the knowledge that no matter how overwhelming their challenges might seem, teens are not alone.