What Matters: Telling It Like It Really Is

by Stephanie H. Meyer, John Meyer, Peggy Veljkovic

A collection of stories and poems by teenage writers, arranged in such categories as "Challenging matters," "Family matters," and "World matters."

400 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2003

Reviews

[Tasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tad tedious

[Terrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am one of the authors in this book...TERRENCE McLAURINE ....it's a great book ...615-568-0011

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the book Teen Ink: What Matters, you look into the life of different teens who have lost loved ones, experienced horrible outcomes and lived through the worst. Teen Ink has stories written by teens, you see their point of view and how they got through hard times in their lives. One of the stories that really stuck with me was a story called "locked up" by a boy named Terrence McLaurine. Terrence was sentenced to 15 years in prison, after he committed a 1st degree murder. Terrence was only 12 when he committed this crime. He wrote this story in 2002 after completing 5 years in jail. He talked about how this has made him rethink his life, and how he wants to change his life when he leaves. This story gave me a view i have never seen before. I know what it is like when someone you know goes to jail, and how they change. I know how going to jail changes things for everyone, but i never knew how this effected the person in jail. This book made me rethink alot. Another story that really stuck with me was "lost Time" by Patricia Harris. This story was about how a young girl looses her aunt to cancer. I never knew how cancer effects people. I have only known my god father who had cancer, and i was 8 when he died. I don't remember him without cancer, but the girl in the story knew her aunt really well. She said her aunt almost raised her because her mother worked so much. Patricia talked about how it felt to loose someone you love and how it effected her life after her aunts death. Patricia talked about how she wished she savored every moment with her aunt more because you don't know what you have untill you loose it. That was a really important message to me. This book has so many amazing stories, and i loved how they were all written by kids and how they were all true stories. I liked how every story had a positive message from such a sad story, and how the author put a happy look on the topic. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes true stories, and who like reading about real life. This book was really well done and i loved reading it.