'Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials' Explores Teen Bu

Bullies¹ - especially aggressively hostile girls - are a topic of major interest to Rosalind Wiseman.
In her non-fiction best-sellers, "Queen Bees & Wannabes," and "Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads," the educator explored the way adolescent girls relate to the world and how parents relate to their teenagers.
Wiseman continues the conversation about teenage bullying³ in the form of a young adult novel, "Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous⁴ Materials," which deals with best friends, high school, loyalty⁵ and doing the right thing.
"Ironically I discovered, which many authors do, that you can really speak about the truth much more easily in fiction than you do in non-fiction," says Wiseman, explaining why she decided⁶ to write fiction this time around. "I was also curious about how to share the stories that kids have told me for the last several years that I've never been able to share in non-fiction because it would reveal who they were or where they come from."
The story opens as Charlie, 13, leaves middle school - and some bad experiences - behind her. Charlie's friends bully² another girl during a school trip and Charlie tries to stay out of it.
"They get roomed together and Charlie's two other friends start to become incredibly mean to Nidhi because they wanted to invite boys to the room and Nidhi says you know, ‘No way.' It gets really bad and Charlie does nothing," says Wiseman. "Her neutral stance doesn't really look neutral. It looks like she is siding with the girls who were being mean and racist⁷."
High school gives Charlie a chance to redeem⁸ herself.
Courtesy rosalindwiseman.com
In her earlier non-fiction books, author Rosalind Wiseman explored the way adolescent girls relate to the world and how parents relate to their teenagers.
"She meets Nidhi again," says Wiseman. "But that actually is a way for her to truly reconcile and figure out and take responsibility for her behavior from before."
Although she's previously⁹ focused on girls, Wiseman notes that boys have never been strangers to bullying or being targeted by bullies. That's a part of her novel as well.
On the first day of high school, Charlie meets Will, her former best friend, who had moved away. Now he's back, looking a lot cuter. And even though he's only in ninth grade, he's a member of the school's Varsity Lacrosse team, playing with older boys. When some of his teammates start bullying him, Charlie tries to get him to report it, but he refuses. Wiseman says that's not unusual. The fear of embarrassment¹⁰ and pressure from peers and even parents, often prevent boys from admitting they're being bullied¹¹.
"When you have a freshman¹² who is really good at some kind of sport, lacrosse, soccer, football, whatever, the parents are just totally excited. But putting a 9th grade boy with a group of 11th, 12th grade boys has a lot of pressure, I'm not only talking about athletic¹³ pressure, but also social pressure," says Wiseman. "That's a ripe situation for abusive power. But the 9th grade boys don't want to tell their parents. They wouldn't come forward and talk about it. That's the other thing I wanted to talk about in this book."
Will's behavior, and Charlie's reluctance¹⁴ to get involved when her friends were making fun of Nidhi, are two of many situations in "Girls, Boys & Other Hazardous Materials," which reflect the reality about bullying.
"I didn't want it to be too preachy, but bullying - if you take away that word, bullying - it's really about the way that people are bigoted¹⁵ toward each other, discriminatory against each other, for the countries that they come from, the religion that they are, the color of their skin," says Wiseman. "I wanted to talk about that in real ways."
Wiseman believes that, although bullying is unfortunately often part of the high school and middle school experience, it can be stopped. One way to do that is to teach kids what she calls 'social competency'.
"We have children who are growing up who need to be taught how to handle when they are in a social situation that makes them uncomfortable, holding yourself accountable for what you've done to take advantage of someone else. I believe parents not only have to teach their kids their values, they have also to teach them how to speak and what to do when you see social injustice¹⁶. And schools have to do this as well as parents, because if they don't, it literally¹⁷ does impact the academic performance of the kids."
Wiseman hopes young readers will find "Girls, Boys & Other Hazardous Materials," interesting, funny and useful in that it prompts discussion about bullying, how to stand up to it and how to stop it.

1 bullies   

n.欺凌弱小者, 开球 vt.恐吓, 威胁, 欺负

参考例句：

• Standing up to bullies takes plenty of backbone. 勇敢地对付暴徒需有大无畏精神。
• Bullies can make your life hell. 恃强欺弱者能让你的日子像活地狱。

2 bully   

n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮

参考例句：

• A bully is always a coward.暴汉常是懦夫。
• The boy gave the bully a pelt on the back with a pebble.那男孩用石子掷击小流氓的背脊。

3 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

5 loyalty   

n.忠诚，忠心

参考例句：

• She told him the truth from a sense of loyalty.她告诉他真相是出于忠诚。
• His loyalty to his friends was never in doubt.他对朋友的一片忠心从来没受到怀疑。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

8 redeem   

v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等）

参考例句：

• He had no way to redeem his furniture out of pawn.他无法赎回典当的家具。
• The eyes redeem the face from ugliness.这双眼睛弥补了他其貌不扬之缺陷。

9 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

10 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

11 bullied   

adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• My son is being bullied at school. 我儿子在学校里受欺负。
• The boy bullied the small girl into giving him all her money. 那男孩威逼那个小女孩把所有的钱都给他。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 freshman   

n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)

参考例句：

• Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
• He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。

13 athletic   

adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的

参考例句：

• This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
• He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。

14 reluctance   

n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿

参考例句：

• The police released Andrew with reluctance.警方勉强把安德鲁放走了。
• He showed the greatest reluctance to make a reply.他表示很不愿意答复。

15 bigoted   

adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的

参考例句：

• He is so bigoted that it is impossible to argue with him.他固执得不可理喻。
• I'll concede you are not as bigoted as some.我承认你不象有些人那么顽固。

16 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

17 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。