adolescent innocence

Beyond the Innocence of Childhood: Helping Children and Adolescents Cope With Life-Threatening Illness and Dying (Death, Value, and Meaning Series)
$66.95
Death is not a mere possibility but a certainty for all of us. Yet, today's society unrealistically portrays childhood as a time of unremittant joy and freedom. Unfortunately, the reality of life may suddenly bring children face to face with tragic circumstances such as the death of their pet, the terminal illness of their parent, their own struggle with life-threatening disease, the accidental death of their sibling, or the suicide of a friend. The gravity of any of these situations takes children beyond the innocence of childhood and plunges them into a world that is frightening and full of uncertainty. Unfortunately, our perceptions and attitudes toward death do not equip children with the tools to help them cope adequately with such overwhelming experiences. Beyond the Innocence of Childhood is a collection of forty chapters which are divided into three separate volumes. The overall purpose of this series is to answer the question: How do we as educators, clinicians, other professionals, and parents help children and adolescents deal with threat to their lives, dying, death, and bereavement? In this three volume set the editors have brought together a number of well-known educators, researchers, and practitioners who share their knowledge and expertise concerning the care and well-being of children and adolescents. The first part of the second volume of Beyond the Innocence of Childhood focuses on the difficulties and challenges that children and adolescents must face as they try to cope with life-threatening illness or attempted suicide. Therapeutic techniques are explained and useful intervention strategies are offered to health care providers and other professionals. Highlights of this section include: The use of art; Storytelling; Music therapy; Therapeutic play; Benefits of humor and laughter; Pets as a source of empowerment; Camps as a therapeutic adjunct; Etiology and treatment of suicidal adolescents; Suffering imposed by life-threatening illness. The second part of this volume directly addresses the world of dying children and families whose lives are permanently changed and filled with difficult emotions and formidable challenges. A comprehensive review of factors which influence the dying process and useful guidelines for intervention are provided for caregivers, other professionals, and parents. Features of this section include: Palliative care; Hospital care versus home care; Lessons from dying adolescents; Therapeutic imagery for pain control; Truthtelling; Influence of spirituality; Developing a children's hospice; Storytelling and reading resources. This important new work is already considered to be the definitive reference resource in death education and grief counseling. Intended Audience: educators, researchers, clinicians, counselors, caregivers, and parents.

Pictures of Innocence: The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood (Interplay)
$24.95
Pictures of Innoncence is a softcover book with over 250 pages containing nine seperate chapters broken down into two parts and illustrated with about 100 photos with eight of which are in color. The chapter breakdowns are follow:

Part I THE INVENTION OF INNONCENCE

Chapter 1: The Romantic Child
Chapter 2: Every Mother's Child
Chapter 3: A Golden Age
Chapter 4: Innocence Inherited
Chapter 5: Snapshot Families

Part II AN IDEAL IN CRISIS

Chapter 6: Through the Looking Glass
Chapter 7: Private Pictures, Public Dangers
Chapter 8: Photographs Against the Law
Chapter 9: Knowing Child

Whether you agree or not with Anne Higonnet's assertions, her book at least displays an earnest and detailed attempt at examining a very volatile and delicate subject at this moment in history. In the early chapters, the auther sites many works of paintings as well as authors from the 19th century to illustrate her point. In the later chapters, she goes into some legal cases from the later half of the 20th century.

Detailed, well-illustrated, and perhapes a bit controversial this book presents the reader a chance to have an open discussion about a subject that many find uncomfortable. In a free society, its citizens should have the ability to shine a light on a topic and perhaps one day set it free, this book is one possible avenue to begin that exploration.

Trapped Between Innocence and Death: A Guide to Being Free from Gang Life
$20.00
Very informative. Gives great background on gang history in Los Angeles and excellent book for councelors.

Fat Girl
$3.99
A MA SOEUR concerns, perhaps, the fertilizing intervention of the stranger, the intrusion of strangeness into the familiar. Anais sees her violation---and the destabilization of her life---as necessary: this is the most subversive thought in Breillat's film. Why else would she protect the werewolf who rapes her and murders her mother and sister? Throughout the film, Anais prays for a rapist werewolf, a loup-garou, to take away her virginity---and thus prevent her from getting her heart broken. Her sister Roxane is the real tragic figure: she is spiritually wounded by the Italian gigolo who absconds with her virginity. This does not happen to Anais. Her first sexual engagement is with one impossible to love. Much of the film is oriented around the sister--even the title in French bears this out ("To my sister"). Anais is merely the voyeuse, the watcher, the observer---she only becomes humanized and sexualized with the intrusion of the stranger. (One recalls the excruciatingly long scene in which she watches her sister coupling with the lothario.) The film is shocking not merely in what it shows, but in what it implies. It concerns, I believe, the making-foreign of the proper---the intervention of foreignness which allows the Anais to connect to her burgeoning sexuality and to liberate herself from her slavish dependency on the sister, previously her life's focus.

This film should be watched together with its magisterial counterpart, BREVE TRAVERSEE, also directed by Breillat in 2002. BREVE TRAVERSEE is equally controlled, but even more subtle and more acute.

Dr. Joseph Suglia