Ages 12 and up. Who would have thought the author of the gritty classic Speak had a gift for comedy? Here she demonstrates her comedic talent in the warm and witty story of Ashley, who is definitely not a prom-type person, and her best friend Nat, who lives for the prom. When the math teacher disappears with the funds just eleven days before the dance, determined and organized Nat goes into high gear to find alternative ways to make the prom happen and drags an unwilling Ashley into the flurry of urgent details.

Ashley has enough problems in her life already, starting with the complexities of her crowded but loving working class family -- her extremely pregnant mother and her three exuberant and prom-crazy aunts, and her cab-driving father and three younger brothers, who think nothing of happily trashing the kitchen in a game of hot dog baseball. Then there’s Mr. Gilroy, the evil vice principal of discipline, who has Ashley on endless detention, her awful job at EZ-CHEEZ-E, where she has trouble seeing the customers through the eyeholes of her rat costume, and her good-looking but lowlife boyfriend TJ, who wants her to join him in a future as depressing as the dank one-room apartment he has so proudly rented for them. Not to speak of Nat’s loony grandmother, who wears her red bathing cap even when she’s not doing the backstroke in a wading pool, babbles at Ashley in Russian, and spits on the floor to show her disapproval.

But in the end it’s grandma with her skill at baking (pastries to bribe the custodians) and sewing (a magical prom dress) who saves both the prom and Ashley’s belief in herself and her future in this delightful and heartfelt novel. --Patty Campbell

From School Library Journal
Grade 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 Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred 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 "'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 © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Booklist, starred review
...teens will love Ashley's clear view of high-school hypocrisies, dating and the fierce bonds of friendship.

Book Description
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.

Excerpted from Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson. Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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

ANNOTATION

Eighteen-year-old Ash wants nothing to do with senior prom, but when disaster strikes and her desperate friend, Nat, needs her help to get it back on track, Ash's involvement transforms her life.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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.

Author Bio: Laurie Halse Anderson (www.writerlady.com) lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

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.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature - Valerie O. Patterson

Eighteen-year old Ashley Hannigan could not care less about her upcoming high school prom, but she may be the only senior in her urban Philadelphia school who does not. Her best friend, Natalia, heads the prom committee and talks of little else. When the math teacher who advises the prom committee is arrested days before the prom for stealing funds for the dance, it is up to the committee—and Ash, who, against her better judgment, volunteers to help—to save the prom. Reluctantly at first, Ash works in earnest to save the prom for the others. Her misfit family and others pitch in to help her. Ash learns that the number of her detentions means she will not be allowed to attend the very dance she is responsible for saving. But, at the last minute, Nat's Russian-speaking off-kilter grandmother presents her with the perfect dress, and Ash decides to go to the dance despite the negative consequences. How Ash saves the prom and finds her own path in the process—including dumping a boyfriend who is not worth the trouble and deciding to move out of her parents' house when she graduates—is a hilarious, touching roller coaster ride that the reader will stay with until the end. The voice exudes authenticity and all the notes ring true in an honest, matter-of-fact way, even when the book touches on issues like teen sex or drugs. Written for the "normal kids" by the author of award-winning Speak and Catalyst, this story will ring true for all teen readers. 2005, Viking, Ages 12 up.

School Library Journal

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 Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews