What My Mother Doesn’t Know

Sones, Sonya. What My Mother Doesn't Know. ISBN-10: 0689855532, ISBN-13: 9780689855535 . Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. 2003.

Summary
Sophie has a lot going on. She's new to high school, her parents have kind of checked-out on her, she's infatuated with the super-hot Dylan, she's crushing on sweet and smart "Murphy" and she's chatting with mysterious Chaz online. And while she and her friends are all talk about suffering from the common disease of "lackonookie," Sophie realizes that while her sometimes-reluctantly hooking-up with Dylan isn't as good as just being with Murphy.

Critical Evaluation
Sonya Sones tells Sophie's story in a series of free verse poems. She taps into the mind, body and heart of a young woman as she poignantly chronicles Sophie's freshman year of high school complete with her lusty thoughts, her fears, her insecurities over her height, and her frustrations with her remote father and her soap-opera addicted mother. Teens will love the honesty of Sophie's lustful thoughts, and older readers will remember when they too felt that way.

Reader's Annotation
Join Sophie as she enters high school and learns about love, lust and friendship. Sonya Sones perfectly chronicles this year of Sophie's life in short free verse poems.

About the Author
Sonya Sones has spent most of her life drawing, animating or editing something or another. The Boston native was educated at Hampshire college, has taught a Harvard, worked in the film industry as an editor and painted baby clothes for Neiman Marcus stores before enrolling in a poetry class at the University of California-Los Angeles. She had an influential professor who guided her into writing her first book Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy in 1999. In over the last decade, she has written four young adult novels, three short stories and one children's picture book—Violet and Winston—with her husband Bennett Tramer.

In her young adult novels, Sones often incorporates bits and pieces of herself in each book. Inspired by her professor and the actual events surrounding her mentally ill sister, Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy was written first (1999). Sones was writing poems about her first love, and then started thinking about all of the "firsts" in a young girl's life, and she used many those thoughts for What My Mother Doesn't Know (2003). Next she incorporated her own story of an East coast girl relocating to the West coast for One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies (2004). What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know (2007) came from the copious amount of letters asking the author for what happened next in Sophie's story. Sones says she wanted to know what happened too, so she wrote the sequel. Sones is currently working on her fifth novel.

Genre
Poetry and Verse
Dating & Sex
Adolescence

Curriculum Ties
English: writing a complete story in verse

Booktalking Ideas
When you're older, what parts of your teen years will you remember? Be embarrassed of? Want to share with others…
Do you know the difference between lusting over a hottie and being in love with someone, and how do you get your body not to betray you…

Awards
Iowa Teen Book Award (2005)
Michigan Thumb's Up Award Honor Book (2002)
American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults (2002)
International Reading Associate Young Adults Choice (2003)
Booklist Editor's Choice (2001)

Reading Level/Interest Age
Ages 14+

Why I included this title...
This is another book that was recommended to me by one of my young adult patrons.