The #MeToo movement has changed the way many people view the world, but how well do tweens understand it? Middle-grade readers are ready to learn about consent, harassment, and abuse, as well as healthy boundaries in all their relationships.
#MeToo and You includes essential terminology, from consent to assault, from just plain yes to just plain no. Author Halley Bondy explores the nuances of emotions, comfort, and discomfort in sexually charged and emotionally abusive situations. Detailed scenarios, both real and hypothetical, provide valuable examples of what's acceptable and what is not, along with tools to help everyone treat others appropriately and to stand up for themselves and their peers.
Halley Bondy is a professional freelance writer, journalist, editor, producer, and mom based in Brooklyn. You can find her articles in NBC News, The Balance, Contently, Digital Trends, Bustle, Romper, The Outline, MTV, and more. She writes scripts for the “Masters of Scale” podcast, and has written for “You Must Remember This.” She has written three other books for Zest including "Speak Up, a guide to having a say and speaking your mind." Learn more at www.thisishalley.com.
A must-read for pre-teens and teens. Divided by topic into chapters (on things like consent, being an ally, healthy boundaries, sexual abuse, and seeking help), #MeToo and You provides essential terminology and real-life examples, offering teens a baseline understanding, actionable advice, and a way to start conversations. This book exposes myths and arms teens with the truth. I cannot stress this enough, every (pre-) teen should read this book or a version of it. Some real-life examples provided are explicit and come with warnings and can be easily skipped for those who may be triggered.
#MeToo and You provides a useful introduction for teens as to what is and is not acceptable for healthy relationships.
The book begins with scenarios and definitions before going on to discuss myths surrounding sexual abuse. There is advice on how to ask for help, and how to provide help for others. It covers all types of relationships which I was impressed with due to the amount of peer-to-peer bullying around these days.
I am sure this book would be very useful for adults looking to begin difficult conversations with their teens. I also feel it could be used by parents of younger children so that they learn from an early age how to respect others.
I highly recommend this book. Thank you Halley Bondy, Lerner Publishing Group, Zest Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
This guide for young adults as to what constitutes appropriate behaviour and what is abuse of various sorts, and what to do about it, may help many young people. I'd like to see this book on the library shelf of every school.
We're guided though early chapters which talk generally, to those with warnings before providing examples of fictional or real life harassment. From a male teacher remarking on girls having periods when they asked to leave the class, to an adult caregiver carrying out inappropriate behaviour, even a girl abducted for days.
Sometimes there is nothing you can do at the time, as the book explains, but you're shown how to report incidents and to whom.
We're also given examples of how to be a good friend and supportive, of how to not participate when some phone photos are being passed around. Peer pressure does not have to include you and control your behaviour. And finally we are given examples of a few young people who started local movements which grew, helping children abroad by actions like selling lemonade.
At the back a lot of organisations are listed, mostly in America. Great work by this journalist author and the metoo stories are barely even covered, there is so much else to discuss.
I downloaded this ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.
#MeToo and You was the perfect conversation starter with our pre-teen. It is a great introduction to consent and healthy boundaries in relationships. I appreciated that author Halley Bondy shares the essential terminology necessary in these important conversations as well as "real-life" scenarios that are relatable and easy to discuss.
This book is accessible and relevant and it is never too early to start having these discussions. As a parent who always appreciates having research and tools to back up important (but sometimes complicated) dialogue, I especially appreciate that #MeToo and You is especially geared for middle-grade tweens readers. Highly recommend!
Thank you to Zest Books for a gifted copy in exchange for my honest review. As always, all opinions are my own.
#MeToo and You is an incredible introductory book to middle school and high school aged children about what is a healthy relationship, what constitutes abuse, how to ask for help, and how to be an ally.
I want to first point out the level of care and consideration that Halley Bondy took in writing this book. She tackles very difficult content and relays the information in a way that pre-teens and teens can understand. Most importantly, she posts trigger warnings at the beginning of her chapters, so readers are not caught off guard with graphic content about sexual assault.
Honestly, I feel like this should be required reading in school. The author does a great job at explaining the content, providing examples (both fictional as well as real), and listing resources for further research on the subject.
Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this free, advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book was kindly given to me for review. This in no way influences my thoughts or opinions
Usually, I don't like giving ratings to nonfiction books. However, this was sent to me for review and I feel like I need to correctly represent how helpful this book would be for the intended audience.
As someone who hasn't been in middle school for quite some time, I was hesitantly going into this book. That being said, I still learned quite a bit and I also recognized that it's my duty to stay informed and also be aware of resources like this for my future students.
Even if there hadn't been a movement of victims speaking out, it's still so important to stay informed on how to stand up for yourself and also be an ally. This book is a quick way to get some basic information on all those things.
It's definitely a resource I'm going to want in my classroom so that my students have something to look to if they're hesitant about coming to me or another adult at first.
Halley Bondy has provided a marvelous tween/teen-friendly manual on healthy vs. unhealthy relationships, power dynamics, consent, boundaries, myths about sexual assault, how to report abuse, being an ally, and more.
This was not an emotionally easy book to read content-wise, but I am so happy this book exists, and think it should be in every middle/high school library. Multiple stories throughout the book (both true and fictional, including the author's own upsetting story of abuse) provide examples of situations and how they were handled well or could maybe have been handled better. The graphic content warnings were very much appreciated, and there's a great resource section at the end as well.
The thing I loved the most about this book is that there is a real focus throughout on identifying abusive behaviors, believing victims, supporting them, and NOT BLAMING THEM.
I especially loved this quote: "It is the responsibility of the rapist NOT TO RAPE, and it is the authorities' responsibility to PROTECT VICTIMS. It is not the responsibility of victims to learn self-defense, even if it's handy."
My only complaint about this book was the focus on activism at the end - it felt overwhelming, even as an adult, and seems like too much for kids to take on in addition to all of this new, difficult information (but I'm old, so who knows).
Age range: middle school / 12+; recommending to all of my tween/teen parent friends
Review based on an ARC provided by Lerner Publishing Group / Zest Books via NetGalley.
#metoo and You is a necessary book for all young teens. It tackles the big topic of sexual assault and the metoo movement. It's an amazing beginner's guide that starts with the basics that everyone should know: healthy vs unhealthy relationships, consent and boundaries. It concisely gives definitions for everything they need to know. It then goes to harder topics surrounding sexual assault and harassment. The author goes into topics surround being a survivor and an ally giving you information about reporting, policies, legal systems, getting and giving support. It then goes into activism for the whole movement and how to get involved outside of advocating outside your own community.
This book was a very informational how to guide for navigating the violation of boundaries and trying to advocate for safer environments. The definitions clearly told the readers what they needed to know while the stories in between the advice and information contextualized the content for the reader.
#MeToo and You was the perfect conversation starter with our pre-teen. It is a great introduction to consent and healthy boundaries in relationships. I appreciated that author Halley Bondy shares the essential terminology necessary in these important conversations as well as "real-life" scenarios that are relatable and easy to discuss.
This book is accessible and relevant and it is never too early to start having these discussions. As a parent who always appreciates having research and tools to back up important (but sometimes complicated) dialogue, I especially appreciate that #MeToo and You is especially geared for middle-grade tweens readers. Highly recommend!
Thank you to Zest Books for a gifted copy in exchange for my honest review. As always, all opinions are my own.
**Thanks to the publisher for providing an e-arc through Netgalley. All opinions are my own**
I don't normally rate nonfiction, but I would probably give this 5 stars. I want to see this book in schools whether or not it be a middle school or high school, or younger. There is so much important information in this book and I think it could be incredibly educational. I really hope that more people read this and I hope that parents pick this up and go through these important definitions with their kids.
This book does an excellent job of discussing the #metoo movement and everything students could need to know about unhealthy relationships. It very clearly warns about explicit content, but nothing overly graphic. The books uses examples with the definitions to help illustrate points. The book is definitely written for younger students, though the content is of course upsetting and intense. I would definitely recommend this book to any student who is thinking about dating or wants to learn more about #metoo.
Phew. this is a terrible book. but... let me clarify. This book covers a terrible topic. And it is impossible to treat this topic with enough gentleness for a middle schooler to learn about it ... from a book. HOWEVER. I can see it would be a good resource for a kid who is struggling in one of these areas - there are so many - whether themselves or a friend of family member. It is full of definitions and examples, and the author tries really hard to write in a way that is not just completely horrifying. but this is a horrifying subject.
This book infuriated me. Because it has to exist. Do schools teach you what to do after being assaulted? No. The simple fact that we have to teach our children how to avoid being raped is outrageous. It means our society is not safe for them.
A hilarious take on a serious subject. So here's "everything" that "you need". Somebody dies and made Bondy pope of MeToo. Or how paternalism can be in everyone, especially the most insignificant.
Okay first of all, I highly recommend people to check this book out. It is definitely centered around resources available in US but apart from that the things that have been discussed in this book are really essential for the target audience, mainly teenagers.
The first thing I really liked about this book was the fact that the author mentioned trigger warnings at every point, wherever it was necessary. The book started off with heavy stuff - ranging from sexual assault and the different terminologies that people should know about and understand them. It talked about boundaries and consent in such a sensitive and important way that it got me to start to think about my boundaries wherever necessary and the aspect of consent became for me and those around me. These topics were covered in a very broad aspect, take consent for an example - the author made sure to include every possible scenario that comes with consent, be it in your personal relationship, friends, family etc.
Other thing about this book is that it contains a lot of resources - links to them and mentions about where to find them. Yes, it was mainly focused on US only but it at least made me search available resources for my country. Conversations around Sexual assault, Consent, Boundaries etc. very limited amongst the teenagers, especially in school. I honestly hope that it changes a bit with coming years and these topics are included more in the conversation and professional knowledge and discussion is given to the students.
Although the author mentions TW before every section and story, here are some: Sexual Assault, R*pe, Bullying, Cyber Bullying, Kidnapping, etc.
I was provided with an arc in exchange for an honest review via netgalley
Terinsipirasi dari gerakan #Metoo, buku ini adalah manual yang baik sekali untuk dibaca oleh remaja perempuan, maupun laki-laki. Seperti keterangan di halaman depan, Bondey menjabarkan secara baik dan singkat mengenai apa itu hubungan, relasi kuasa, konsen dan batasan. Kemudian masuk membahas tentang kekerasan seksual dan bentuk-bentunya. Nyaris tidak ada yang terlewat. Dari perkosaan sampai ke grooming. Di setiap awal bab, penulis memberikan trigger warning yang jelas. Selalu ada contoh kasus dalam setiap pembelajarannya.
Selain itu, penulis juga memberikan beberapa opsi apa yang bisa dilakukan jika mengalami hal-hal di atas. Dan bagaimana kita menjawab ‘ally’ dari para penyintas dan apa yang bisa dilakukan untuk mengambil aksi dalam gerakan memutus kekerasan seksual.