13 Is the New 18

By Beth J. Harpaz

The author tells about how she coped with her son's transformation from little boy to restless teenager the year he turned 13. From a sweet, smart youngster to a gangly, deep-voiced young man in the space of a few short months, from a good student to an indifferent one, from spending time with his family to preferring to spend time on the streets hanging out with his friends. An exasperating, kind of scary time for his parents who realized pretty quick that there wasn't a lot they could do to keep their kid on the straight and narrow, that it would be mostly up to the young man himself. After a year fraught with guilt (her inner voice insists she is "a terrible mother") Beth sees her son pull himself out of his slump, gain new maturity and set his feet back on the straight path without getting himself in too much trouble, beyond an incident at prom involving alcohol and getting mugged on the street by a gang of toughs.

A pretty readable story, although the author's repeated declarations that she is a terrible mother wear a little thin after awhile. She's not a terrible mother and her kid is just a typical kid.