Table of Contents
We dedicate this book
to the 450,000 teenagers who have
submitted their work to us,
making Teen Ink magazine and TeenInk.com
possible during the past eighteen years.
Foreword
Most teen books are written in retrospect by those who say, Hey, I remember what I felt like when I was sixteen the arguments with parents, flunking math, and falling in love. I remember the day my best friend decided he didnt want to be my best friend anymore. Its not unusual for used-to-be-teens turned authors to sit down and write their stories.
This book is different. It isnt a collection of adults rein-venting their teen years. It isnt a scrapbook of the past or a touched-up picture of teen life cut and pasted into something it wasnt.
This book is, instead, those restless years close-up, personal, and in progress. The stories were written by teenagers during their teenage years. This book brims with the stuff of everyday teen life, the thoughts and worries and dreams and insecurities and fantasies and hopes, not of someone looking back, but of someone looking forward. Chicken Soup for the Teen Soul: Real Stories by Real Teens is a collection of stories and poetry that is different because it is written from the trenches of youth.
Within these pages, its voices are like the teens themselves: all over the map. Some are soft and sad; others are loud and strident. Theyre bright with hope and tinged with fear. Theyre the voices of kids shouting at a rally, kids answering a question in class, and kids whispering in the back of a room.
Unlike some collections, nothing is pat here. It isnt a collection of teenagers standing in a row, all wearing the same white shirts and sunny smiles. Here are braces and frowns, dress shirts and T-shirts, earrings and nose rings, thirteen and nineteen, standing side by side.
It is Chicken Soup for the Teen Soulteens speaking out about being a teen today.
Beverly Beckham
Beverly Beckham is a columnist for The Boston Globe and is a frequent contributor to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. She is also the author of Gift of Time and Back Then.
Acknowledgments
We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to the following people who helped make this book possible.
Our families, who have been chicken soup for our souls!
Jacks family: Inga, Travis, Riley, Christopher, Oran, and Kyle, for all their love and support.
Marks family: Patty, Elisabeth, and Melanie Hansen, for once again sharing and lovingly supporting us in creating another book.
Stephanie and Johns family: Alison and Rob, our children, who have been a continuing source of encouragement ever since the beginning of Teen Ink magazine in 1989 when they were just teenagers themselves. They, and now their families, have helped guide us every step of the way.
Our publisher, Peter Vegso, for his vision and commitment to bringing Chicken Soup for the Soul to the world.
Patty Aubery and Russ Kamalski, for being there on every step of the journey, with love, laughter, and endless creativity.
Dette Corona, for being there to answer any questions along the way.
Patty Hansen, for her thorough and competent handling of the legal and licensing aspects of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. You are magnificent at the challenge!
Veronica Romero, Barbara LoMonaco, Teresa Collett, Robin Yerian, Jesse Ianniello, Lauren Edelstein, Lisa Williams, Lauren Bray, Laurie Hartman, Patti Clement, Connie Simoni, Karen Schoenfeld, Marty Robinson, Patti Coffey, Pat Burns, Kristi Waite, and Blake Arce, who support Jacks and Marks businesses with skill and love.
Michele Matriscini, Carol Rosenberg, Andrea Gold, Allison Janse, and Katheline St. Fort, our editors at Health Communications, Inc., for their devotion to excellence.
Tom Sand, Lori Golden, Kelly Johnson Maragni, Patricia McConnell, Kim Weiss, Paola Fernandez-Rana, the marketing, sales, and PR departments at Health Communications, Inc., for doing such an incredible job supporting our books.
Tom Sand, Claude Choquette, and Luc Jutras, who manage year after year to get our books translated into thirty-six languages around the world.
The art department at Health Communications, Inc., for their talent, creativity, and unrelenting patience in producing book covers and inside designs that capture the essence of Chicken Soup: Larissa Hise Henoch, Lawna Patterson Oldfield, Andrea Perrine Brower, Anthony Clausi, and Dawn Von Strolley Grove.
And to the Teen Ink group: a special thanks to Kate Dunlap Seamans, whose editorial expertise has been a mainstay of our organization for the past eight years; Katie Olsen, whose abilities and intellect have brought her to fill the enormous task of production/designer coordinator and web master; and Tara Jordan, who has been an invaluable part of creating this latest Teen Ink book, as well as managing every task necessary for our monthly magazine and website. Thanks also to our longtime volunteer, Barbara Field, who has been a support in so many ways through many years of service. In addition, we appreciate the extra effort from our ever-evolving team of high school and college interns, including most recently, Dorry Samuels and Emma Halwitz. We also deeply appreciate all the support of our extended staff: Larry Reed, Bob Kuchnicki, Ruth Cretella, and Tyler Ford.
Thank you to our extended family and friends who always helped and offered their support on many levels: all the Raisners (Barbara, Debra, Eli, Jason, David, and Amy), Joseph Rice III, Jennifer and Rick Geisman, Katherine Brinson, Lowell and Paula Fox, Denise Peck and Paul Chase, Ann Olivarius and Jef McAllister, Leana Arain, Barbara Wand, Molly Dunn, and Zick Rubin.
And our even larger family of Foundation Board members: J. Robert Casey, Richard Freedberg, and David Anable, as well as our Advisory Board: Beverly Beckham, Michael Dukakis, Milton Lieberman, Harold Raynolds, and Susan Weld, who have served with us through the years.
In addition, we want to thank the teachers from over seventy-five high schools from thirty-seven states and their more than thirty-four hundred students who read and evaluated sample chapters of our Teen Ink books to give us their feedback and ratings that helped determine the final selections.
Thanks also for all the support from the following individuals who have allowed their voices to be heard through exclusive Teen Ink interviews that have appeared in the magazine: First Lady Laura Bush, Gen. Colin Powell, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. John Glenn, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Caroline Kennedy, Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway, Maya Angelou, George Lucas, Alicia Keys, Whoopi Goldberg, R. L. Stine, Ice Cube, Andrew Shue, Tony Hawk, Pedro Martinez, and Ira Glass.
Because of the size of this project, we may have left out the names of some people who contributed along the way. If so, we are sorry, but please know that we really do appreciate you very much.
We are truly grateful and love you all!
Introduction
Welcome to Chicken Soup for the Teen Soul: Real Stories by Real Teens. This is a unique book in that Teen Ink has collaborated with Chicken Soup to offer you stories from the Teen Ink
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