13 Reasons Why

Book:  13 Reasons Why (Book Link)
Author: Jay Asher (Author Link)
Illustrator: None
Publisher: Razorbill
Date of Publication: 2007
Genre: Middle School Readers, Written in the last 4 years, Early Chapter Book, Diverse Protagonists
Lexile Score: HL550L
Citation: Asher, J. (2007). 13 Reasons Why. New York, NY: Razorbill.
Online: http://blog.wsd.net/joburke/files/2012/11/Jay-Asher-Thirteen-Reasons-Why-book.pdf

Summary: One day the main character Clay Jensen gets home from school and then finds a package on his porch of tapes.  On the tapes is Hannah Bakers voice who had committed suicide explaining 13 reasons why she committed suicide.  On each of the tapes she talked about one specific person and how they impacted her.  Over the course of the tapes a lot of information was brought to light, and overall a lot of students were very awful to one another.  

Audience:  I would say this book would be targeted at grades 8th and up due to the graphic content.  The book has a lot of traumatic events that the characters go through, and I think a mature reader would need to read it.  For example this is something very real that people go through, and without a mature mind they might not be able to process it. 

Evaluation: I thought this was a great book for middle school readers.  It had a very interesting and powerful message.  There were many examples of how the students treated each other and could be very eye opening for many readers.  It might even happen to cause students to learn to treat each other better because they can see the harsh impacts it can have. 

Activity: Have the students write out an example of when they may have seen bullying taking place around them.  Then write out how they could have helped in that certain situation or how they might have handled things differently looking back.