Prom / Laurie Halse Anderson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

High school senior Ashley Hannigan doesn't care about prom, but she's the exception. It's pretty much the only good thing at her urban Philadelphia high school, and everyone plans to make the most of it-especially Ash's best friend, Natalia, who's the head of the committee. Then the faculty advisor is busted for taking the prom money, and Ash suddenly finds herself roped into putting together a gala dance out of absolutely nada. But she has help-from her large and loving (if exasperating!) family, from Nat's eccentric grandmother, from her fellow classmates. And in putting the prom together, Ash learns that she has choices about her life after high school. Prom has everything that award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for-humor, poignancy, teen readers' tough issues dealt with head-on, and a voice teen readers will recognize as their own.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

1. Once upon a time there was an eighteen-year-old girl who dragged her butt out of bed and hauled it all the way to school on a sunny day in May. 2. That was me. 3. Normal kids (like me) thought high school was cool for the first three days in ninth grade. Then it became a big yawn, the kind of yawn that showed the fillings in your teeth and the white stuff on your tongue you didn't scrape off with your toothbrush. Sometimes I wondered why I bothered. Normal kids (me again), we weren't going to college, no matter what anybody said. I could read and write and add and do nails and fix hair and cook a chicken. I could defend myself and knew which streets were cool at night and which neighborhoods a white girl like me should never, ever wander in. So why keep showing up for class? Blame my fifth-grade teacher. Ms. Valencia knew she was teaching a group of normal kids. She knew our parents and our neighborhood. Couple times a week she'd go off on how we absolutely, positively had to graduate from high school, diploma and all (like the GED didn't count, which was cold), or else we were going straight to hell, with a short detour by Atlantic City to lose all our money in the slot machines. She made an impression, know what I mean? Every kid who was in that fifth-grade class with me was graduating, except for the three who were in jail, the two who kept having babies, the one who ran away, and the two crack whores. The rest of us, we were getting by. I was getting by. 4. It had been a decent morning, for a Tuesday. No meltdowns at home. The perverts outside the shelter left me alone, and the Rottweiler on Seventh was chained up. A bus splashed through the puddle at the corner of Bonventura and Elk, but only my sneakers got soaked. It could have been worse. At least the sun was shining and some of my homework was done. So I got to admit, I was in a half-decent mood that morning, dragging myself and my butt to school. I had no clue what was coming Excerpted from Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Ashley Hannigan has her future all planned out. She'll graduate by the skin of her teeth (if she can serve the detentions she's racked up and pay her overdue book fines), and then she'll move into an apartment with her 19-year-old dropout boyfriend, T.J. The last thing on Ashley's mind is Senior Prom... but that's before a crisis hits Carceras High. After Miss Crane, the math teacher, embezzles all of the prom money, Ashley's best friend, Nat (short for Natalia), begs Ashley to help the prom committee. Before Ashley understands the full impact of what's happening, she finds herself leading a frenzied campaign to reorganize, finance and pull off a whole new prom in less than two weeks' time. This energetic novel, narrated by Ashley, offers snappy commentary about high-school life, and some priceless scenes, one of which features Ashley (who had planned to skip the dance) being barraged by hand-me-down gowns from well-meaning relatives (none of which fit). Ashley shines brightly as the heroine who saves the prom, but memorable supporting characters-Ashley's very pregnant mother (expecting her fifth child), an entourage of loud Irish aunts, and Natalia's Russian grandmother, who has Alzheimer's and a taste for canned ravioli-also add sparkle. Whether or not readers have been infected by prom fever themselves, they will be enraptured and amused by Ashley's attitude-altering, life-changing commitment to a cause. Ages 12-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 8 Up-Ashley is (in her own words) normal-a senior from a lower-middle-class family, dating a high school dropout, and gearing up for graduation but with no plans for college. But when the new math teacher steals the prom money, Ashley-who swears she doesn't care-finds herself sucked into turning nothing into the best prom ever because it means the world to her best friend, Nat. This is a light, fast read, with "chapters" that range from one line to five pages and a narrative voice that is only a little smarter than it should be. Some secondary characters-Ashley's mother and Nat's grandmother-jump off the pages; unfortunately, the teens do not fare as well. Boyfriend TJ is a stereotypical tough boy, and Ash and Nat's other friends are there mostly as filler. But the first-person narration and the essentially personal nature of the story-Ashley finally comes into her own and proves herself successful at something other than garnering undeserved detentions-makes this a flaw that readers will overlook. In fact, the major flaw is that it's hard to believe Ashley is as bad a kid as she might have you believe. But teens are notorious for making petty misbehavior sound bigger and badder, so this could be read as further proof of just how normal she is. Those looking for another Speak (Farrar, 1999) may be disappointed, but this book will delight readers who want their realism tempered with fun.-Karyn N. Silverman, Elizabeth Irwin High School, New York City (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 9-12. Ashley understands that the senior prom at her Philadelphia school is a big deal to her close friends even though she thinks it's stupid. So imagine her shock at finding herself the most likely candidate to save the prom after a troubled math teacher makes off with the funds. Many of Anderson's previous novels have been heart-wrenching accounts of teen survivors, such as the date-rape victim in Speak (1999) and the yellow fever survivor in Fever 1793 (2000). Here, though, Anderson's bright, witty narrator is a self-professed ordinary kid, whose problems, while intensely felt, are as common as a burger and fries. Ashley's as ambivalent about her gorgeous but undependable boyfriend as she is about her college prospects; her part-time job serving pizza in a rat costume is far from fulfilling; and her family, which she calls \lquote no-extra-money-for-nuthin'-poor, mortifies her (her pregnant mother's belly screams to the world that her parents have sex), even as they offer love and support. In clipped chapters (some just a sentence long), Ashley tells her story in an authentic, sympathetic voice that combines gum-snapping, tell-it-like-it-is humor with honest questions about her future. The dramatic ending may be a bit over the top, but teens will love Ashley's clear view of high-school hypocrisies, dating, and the fierce bonds of friendship. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2005 Booklist

Horn Book Review

(High School) Anderson's new novel weaves the singular spell of senior prom, captivating even jaded, street-smart, practical-minded Ashley Hannigan. Ashley, one of the ""normal kids [who] weren't going to college, no matter what anybody said,"" is more concerned with finding an apartment with her boyfriend, T.J., than with the one night of romance that has all the other kids at her urban high school enthralled. The prom is suddenly threatened, however, when first a teacher steals all the funds and then Ashley's best friend (and head of the prom committee) breaks a leg; Ashley single-handedly saves the prom in between exhausting shifts at the EZ-CHEEZ-E restaurant. Despite her heroics, Ashley's unserved detentions and a malicious vice-principal conspire to keep her away on the big night, while her over-involved but loving family will do anything to get her there. The novel is set in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood, but Ashley and her friends could be any American teens, less defined by their background than by their dreams. Ashley's poor academic performance is hard to reconcile with her intelligence and ambition, though Anderson offers a credible distraction in the charming (but unreliable) T.J. In allowing herself a little magic and fantasy, Ashley begins to see a different kind of happy ending to her life after graduation. Few adolescent girls will be able to resist Anderson's modern fairy tale. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Book Review

Ashley thinks of herself as a normal kid: best friend next door, hot, but unreliable dropout boyfriend, parents a bit spacey, and a household barely hanging in there. She's not into the prom the way her best friend Natalia is, so when it nearly gets cancelled because a teacher has absconded with all the money, Ashley is not prepared for Nat's approach. Nat figures they can still have a prom, if they beg for stuff and get teachers to help and bribe the custodial staff and so on. Rather against her will, Ashley gets sucked into the lists in Nat's pink notebook. It delights her very pregnant mom; it makes dealing with all those detentions and uncompleted assignments even more of a chore; it focuses Nat's slightly addled Russian grandmother on dressmaking; and calls Ashley's hilarious aunts to the fore. Modern teen life just outside Philadelphia is vividly drawn in Ashley's first-person tale, and it's both screamingly funny and surprisingly tender. It's also full of sly throwaway references: oaths taken on a copy of Lord of the Rings instead of a Bible, Ash's dad singing Aerosmith, accounts that read, "he was all . . . I was all . . . then he was all." Expect teen readers to be quoting aloud to each other, and giggling. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.