SuitabookCrusader
Edward Bloor
- Reading
- Consider reading alongside your teen or checking in after the murder and suicide material. Leave room to discuss racial language, prejudice and the viewpoints presented without assuming the book settles them.
- Themes
- Prejudice and hate crimes: Racism and prejudice are major themes; the story includes hate crimes at the mall and racial epithets. The book raises questions about overt and less visible forms of prejudice.
- Competing accounts of conflict: Roberta and Sam discuss Western and Arab views of the Crusades and the Gulf War. The discussion offers an opening to consider how perspectives shape accounts of conflict.
- Roberta’s growing self-assertion: Roberta begins to stand up to her school, a local politician and her father while investigating her mother’s death. Her developing self-assertion is presented as a positive change.
- Worth knowing
- The book includes a stabbing murder, a graphically described suicide, hate crimes, racial epithets, teens using drugs, an adult’s drunkenness and an unwanted breast grab. These may merit a check-in.