Choke
Diana López
Scholastic • 2012 • 230 pages
ISBN: 978-0-54-541822-5
Hardcover ($17.99)
Ages 12 and up
Windy is a lonely girl who doesn’t have many friends. Her parents won’t let her do the types of things that may help her to fit it in with the “cool girls” at school, like wear makeup and stay out late. Everything changes when a new girl moves into the neighborhood and enrolls at Windy’s school. Nina is cool, sophisticated and, best of all, wants to be friends with Windy. One day, Nina asks Windy if she wants to be her “breath sister.” Although she doesn’t know what that means, Windy readily agrees to stick by Nina and her new circle of cool girlfriends. Windy soon learns that being a breath sister entails playing a dangerous choking game that has become popular in her school.
Read Related: Peer Pressure: How to Prepare Your Kids
With Nina and her other new friends on the line, will Windy take that chance? Set in a middle school with eighth-grade characters, this book is geared for adolescent children at the point when they are most likely to feel peer pressure. Written by a teacher who based it on her own experiences working with children, this book would make an interesting and important gift for a young, impressionable teen or tween.
—Reviewed by Beth Rotella, Teacher, New York
