Twelve-year-old Sura, serving a six-month sentence at a rough juvenile dentention center for stealing hood ornaments, struggles to survive the experience with his body and his spirit intact.
Shavonne, a fierce, desperate seventeen year-old in juvenile lockup, wants to turn her life around before her eighteenth birthday, but corrupt guards, out-of-control girls, and shadows from her past make her task seem impossible.
how the troubled-teen industry cons parents and hurts kids
Szalavitz, Maia
2006
Examines the troubled-teen industry, including tough love treatment programs, boot camps, and wilderness programs that claim to cure teens' addictions and reform their destructive behavior, and explains how this industry harms teens more than helping them.