The Courage to Be Yourself: True Stories by Teens About Cliques, Conflicts, and Overcoming Peer Pressure

by Al Desetta, Educators for Social Responsibility

Cassandra is hassled by her friends for sitting with the “wrong” kids at lunch. Jennifer gets harassed because she’s overweight. Dwan’s own family taunts her for not being “black enough.” Yen is teased for being Chinese; Jamel for not smoking marijuana. Yet all find the strength to face their conflicts and the courage to be themselves. In 26 first-person stories, real teens write about their lives with searing honesty. They will inspire young readers to reflect on their own lives, work through their problems, and learn who they really are.

Genres: Nonfiction

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Aaron Kirk]

What did you think?
The Courage to Be Yourself was inspirational and gave a message to readers to spread kindness all over the world and to not be a racist because it's not nice to others who also are different. Not to mention that nowadays stuff like this still go on in life. And little kids hearing it from adults or from parents or all over the world and the fact that this goes on nowadays is just outrageous. Another thing is the book help shows dad being racist or discriminating against other people is in nice and the fact that the book shows how other kids are being racist other kids and how they learn it from parents and all over the world and I think that this book helped inspire people to not be racist which is a very good thing for our community and Society nowadays and I would like to say how grateful I am to read this book to show how important it is for me just in case if I ever did it before even though I never did.

Once upon a time I have experienced racism font this white kid in from my old school who would always be like “you're not welcome here in our school or Society go back to where you came from” which I felt was very rude and offended me very badly and the fact that they made a book about it shows that it goes on and is very popular bad thing that happens in our life. I am super grateful for this book to show other kids not to be racist and that is a very bad thing and against the law I believe. I feel that this book should be read all over the world even though I'm not sure if it has because it can show other people like I said previously that bullying isn't right and that we got to take a stand for justice of racist people because it's not something. That's a little bad it's like a big problem in our society now and I feel like people need to take a stand for it and like fix it or like make a law over there or something I believe this is in the right thing for people to do and the fact that still goes on in our society in 2022 is just crazy to me so I am glad that this book has came out so people can see that are being racist and discriminating others is wrong. For example I've noticed one of my friends if you being racist to the Asian who came to our school from Japan and saying do you eat cat and dog or why are your eyes so small and say do you also eat ramen which kind of made me mad and felt like I was part of the disrespectfulness that happened. And as I come to a I would like to say to never bully anyone who is different from our society of the USA I believe it is not right and disrespectful to others I also had a question what would you feel if someone made fun of you just like how you made fun of them? but again I am so grateful for this book to read what you taught me how much I appreciate people of other races and how being racist is bad.

[Jo Oehrlein]

Stories by teenagers told in their own voice about cliques and peer pressure.

There are 26 stories. I imagine selecting one story from the collection and using it in a lesson (either reading it aloud or having the kids read it). Response could be verbal or written.

Although I think these teens were from the NYC area, I think many of the situations are common.

It's a good book to have in your arsenal when dealing with trying to grow humans who treat others well out of middle school & high school aged kids.