My Teenage Werewolf

Lauren Kessler, best known locally for being the author of last year's Newport Reads (and Oregon Reads) book, Stubborn Twig, has a new book out titled My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, a Daughter, a Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence. It chronicles Kessler’s study of and relationship with her daughter during a year and a half of middle school in Eugene, Oregon.

My first reaction-- OMG, this lady’s teenage daughter literally allowed herself to be followed around school, and EVERYWHERE! to be, like analyzed and stuff. Who would DO that?!!

So, apparently, I haven’t matured much since middle school. But to me, that’s still the most amazing part of the book. (Perhaps I would have felt differently as a teenager if my mother were an award-winning author of creative nonfiction.) In any case, Kessler’s daughter Lizzie did participate in her mother’s effort to find out what the life of a middle school girl is really like, and according to Kessler, it was a positive experience. Lizzie appreciated being the center of attention, and Kessler was able to use that as a bridge to greater understanding.

Kessler supplemented this field research with as much information as she could absorb about teen brain development, social development, and psychology, via reading and speaking with experts. The book does not have a bibliography, but some specific resources are mentioned throughout.

Parents of teen-, tween-, and pre-tween- girls may find this book informative and comforting, as Kessler weathers the ups and downs of middle school with her daughter, including mood swings, unstable friends, internet obsession, exposure to drugs, and almost daily mother-daughter fights. Parents of boys may not find it very pertinent; the book focuses heavily on specifically female issues like the multigenerational mother/daughter experience and media influence on female body image. Kessler says her two boys made it through the brain development, hormonal fluctuations, and physical and social stresses of adolescence with much less melodrama than her daughter, and leaves it at that.

The concept of going back and experiencing the day-to-day environment of school as an adult in order to better understand our kids is a worthwhile one to think about. Our own recollections, whether nostalgic or nightmarish, are colored by whatever developmental stages and childhood events were going on in our lives at the time. What our kids experience may be very different, and may explain some of their behaviors and attitudes outside of school. Read My Teenage Werewolf, and think about it.