Book Review: After

After by Francine Prose

SUMMARY: A school-shooting incident in nearby Pleasant Valley causes Tom's high school administrators to be worried about a ripple effect. A crisis counselor is hired and a watchdog atmosphere grows as the teens' privileges rapidly disappear. Tom and his sophomore classmates are annoyed but not overly concerned about the new security restrictions until they notice eerie disappearances of friends who fail to conform, including Tom's two best friends. The random drug tests, backpack searches, parental e-mail, and dress codes soon expand into mind-controlling daily assemblies, book censorship, and camps for "behavior" problems. After a tip from a Pleasant Valley basketball player, Tom is convinced that students everywhere are being sent away and hopes his father hasn't also been brainwashed via the e-mails from the school authorities. The pace picks up as Tom and friend Becca are caught trying to alert their fellow students to the menacing counselor and know that their lives are at risk. (from the School Library Journal review)

OPINION: How much freedom are you willing to give up for the greater good? Should schools implement dress codes? Is it OK for police dogs to sniff students' lockers for drugs? Should schools restrict your reading material? What starts as a contemporary story about school violence quickly turns into a dystopian fantasy as students gradually lose freedoms in the name of safety. Many issues of student rights are explored, but the author incorporates them in such a gradual way that it blurrs the line between right and wrong. How much is too much?