What It Takes To Pull Me Through: Why Teenagers Get in Trouble and How Four of Them Got Out

David Marcus gained unfettered access to students, staff, and parents at the Academy at Swift River in western Massachusetts. The kids who come to Swift River have already headed down some of the dangerous paths that all parents fear their children may take - drug use, violence, theft, Internet addiction, eating disorders, even prostitution. Known for combining rigorous courses, wilderness survival, and group therapy in an intensive fourteen-month program, the school helps troubled teenagers regain emotional health.
With the cooperation of the kids at Switt River, their parents, counselors, and teachers, Marcus observed students' group therapy sessions and read their journals, discovering astonishing crises and surprising truths. He focuses on four remarkable kids who run the demographic gamut: a southern girl whose privileges cannot save her from sinking into drug abuse and unsafe sex; the self-destructive son of teachers who grapples with his anger about being adopted; a black kid from a rough New York neighborhood who is silenced by a consuming depression; and a once high-achieving Florida girl broken by the death of her mother.

David L. Marcus is a contributing editor at U.S. News and a visiting scholar at Ithaca College's Park School of Communications.