Five top Bildungsromans

Emily Bazelon's new book is Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy.

For The Daily Beast, she named her five favorite coming-of-age stories.  One title on the list:

This Beautiful Life
by Helen Schulman

The best parts of Schulman’s cautionary novel about teen sexting are told from the point of view of Jake, a 15-year-old at the New York prep school Riverdale. He gets a porn video from a younger girl named Daisy, and in a rash, unthinking moment forwards it to one friend—as you can imagine, that proves to be a mistake of devastating proportions. The book takes place in the rarefied society of wealthy New York, but its reach is much broader, I think, and I give Schulman a lot of credit for the care she takes with the teenage characters, especially the boys, who have stuck with me.

Read about another book on the list.

Read "Don’t Be a Bystander: How to teach kids to step in and stop bullies in their tracks" by Emily Bazelon.

Writers Read: Emily Bazelon (September 2007).

--Marshal Zeringue