More Teens in Trouble!

Teen AlcoholismTeen Alcoholism
Nielsen
1990

The Facts About Teen Pregnancy
Guernsey, Larsen, and Wynne
1989

Submitter: The Teen Alcoholism book was checked out by a student who thought the picture of the girl with mall hair swigging from the paper enshrouded bottle in a stairwell was hysterical. These books are only from the early 1990s, but so awful that the entire series needs to go.

Submitter: There are timely books published about teen pregnancy every year. The young woman pictured in the David Bowie room is not someone a contemporary teen can relate to. She comes from the same era as their mothers. This was weeded as soon as we saw it.

Holly: These teen issues books need to be updated to reflect today’s teens.  Is this book for the teen, or for the teen’s parents?  If it is for the teen, it is horribly outdated.  If it is for the parent, and they think this represents today’s teens, maybe they should also check out a book for adults who drink.  These are important topics that should be kept up to date, not ignored as if these books are “good enough.”

Teen Pregnancy

Teen Pregnancy

47 comments

  1. Pfft. Doesn’t represent them, my ass! I have a totally David Bowie room!

  2. Oh, give me a break! The drunk girl is a total amateur. Just look at that double-handed drinking technique!

  3. Is that Markie Post drinking in that stairwell?

    And I’m sure that there’s teens with David Bowie posters. Only in ever single one he’s Jareth from Labyrinth.

  4. My teen daughter looked at the second picture and wondered, “What, did David Bowie get her pregnant?!” The book might be out of date, but David Bowie will never be!

  5. I have actually just weeded several other titles in the overview series, though none as funny. Our collection here is so scanty on current issue teen books that they were kept because previous librarians didn’t think they’d be replaced and wanted something. I figure if they don’t replace them we are still better off.

  6. A Bowie room! Be still my heart! There’s CLEARLY nothing wrong with that girl. I think her priorities are straight. I want this book so I can rip out that page and put it on my wall.

  7. Forget Bowie. You know how she got pregnant? Someone did the Super Bowl shuffle in her woo-woo.

  8. Is that what teen alcoholism looks like? Squatting in the corner of a building perched upon a carpet remnant? All alone? Well, I guess so, they’re the experts on teen alcoholism.

    Might as well come at kids with the “you’ll be living in a van down by the river!”

  9. WGN Radio sticker? A Chicago icon! It has never played any music let alone Bowie.

  10. The drinking girl looks like she’s trying to play the bottle like a trumpet … how much has she had already??

  11. I hope the moral of the first book is that teen drinking will give you a bleach blonde mullet.

  12. and who in the history of the world has ever REALLY drunk from a bag-wrapped bottle?

    why? why would you? especially if your indoors, and-maybe even-alone…

    i think it’s because a bottle in twisted up old paper bag looks that much more cliche’ sleazy and skid row.

  13. I’d just like to say I’ve now had “Dance Magic Dance” stuck in my head on an endless loop since this was published.

  14. I LOVE the Super Bowl Shuffle poster in the background as well. I totally own that on 45! Go Bears!

  15. She comes from the same era as their mothers.

    My first thought was, ‘that’s not true, that’s MY era…oh, wait…’

    Now I felt really, really old.

  16. Yeah, I’m with everyone else here who says a Bowie room is timeless. I had Bowie albums on my wall, and I could not be the mother of a teenager unless I got knocked up at a very early age. Very early.

  17. I was going to send this to my sister all, “Hey, how did they get this photo of your bedroom!” but then I saw she’d already posted a comment. Rock on, David Bowie, with your potent self.

  18. The WGN bumper sticker made me laugh. That makes no sense at all. No one person could be that into Bowie and Wally Phillips at the same time.

    1. It’s actually a Chicago Cubs bumper sticker, which would be a more plausible explanation than pregnancy for her depression!

  19. About the Teen Pregnancy book: these days we need some books about older parents raising the babies that these teen girls are having. At 18 my daughter had a baby boy who I have raised since birth. It’s not that I need books on how to raise my grandson, it’s where do I find a book explaining where and how to get the stamina to keep up with a now 2 year old while in my 50s! I do love him as my own, and when he gets his ‘big boy’ room, perhaps I’ll do it in Bowie……

  20. @AnnD – Actually, you could be the parent of a teenager even having Bowie on your own wall. My favorite Bowie song is ‘Young Americans’ and that came out in 1975. I was 20 then and I have 6 grown children, a 17 year old, and a 12 year old besides raising my 2 yr. old grandson. I was 19 and married when I had my first child and unusually for these times, married first. Bowie does go quite a ways back – and he’s still amazing!

  21. Is it just me or is this the same girl from the bulimia book? Same outfit and all. Things just aren’t going well.

  22. Isn’t Bowie a bit on the Bi side? Why would All American girls go ga ga for a bi boy? But then I guess all the hot guys these days are sorta bi.

  23. I think my parents had the same WGN bumper sticker on one of our cars in the 80s. It has a Cubs logo on the left side.

  24. WGN, pfft. Anyone else remember when WLS-AM was one of the hottest rockin’ stations in the Midwest?

  25. The newer version of this book would picture a girl sitting in a Justin Bieber room. 🙂

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