Touch - Hardcover

Prose, Francine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061375187 ISBN 13: 9780061375187

Publisher: HarperTeen, 2009

Synopsis

What really happened at the back of the bus?

Did they, or didn't they?

Did she, or didn't she?

Something happened to fourteen-year-old Maisie Willard—something involving her three friends, all boys. But their stories don't match, and the rumors spin out of control. Then other people get involved . . . the school, the parents, the lawyers. The incident at the back of the bus becomes the center of Maisie's life and the talk of the school, and, horribly, it becomes news. With just a few words and a touch, the kids and their community are changed forever.

From nationally acclaimed author Francine Prose comes an unforgettable story about the difficulties of telling the truth, the consequences of lying, and the most dangerous twist of all—the possibility that you yourself will come to believe something that you know isn't true.

About this title

About the Author:

Francine Prose is the author of twenty-one works of fiction, including Mister Monkey; the New York Times bestseller Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and Blue Angel, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her works of nonfiction include Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim, a Fulbright, and a Director’s Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, she is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in New York City.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Maisie has always been best friends with three boys in her class, including Shakes, who has mild cerebral palsy. In ninth grade, though, things change after she grows huge breasts, and she and Shakes start to explore each other’s bodies in the back of the school bus. Then, their two buddies join in and grope Maisie. Afterward, false rumors spread at school that Maisie asked her friends to find other guys who would pay money in exchange for touching her, and Maisie’s stepmom sues the school board. Caught by Maisie’s immediate first-person narrative, readers will race through the story, only to wonder, in the end, if they missed what really happened. Did the boys grope Maisie? Did she want them to? But readers will realize that the ambiguity is part of the story: “the whole question of what’s true, what’s a lie, what you think, what you say, and what you start to believe.” Maisie’s sessions with a therapist feel a bit purposeful, but her anger, hurt, and sexual awakening are riveting, as are all the novel’s big questions about harassment and every incident’s multiple versions of the truth. Grades 10-12. --Hazel Rochman

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperTeen
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0061375187
• ISBN 13: 9780061375187
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272