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Speak is a young adult fiction novel by Laurie Halse Anderson. Since being published in 1999, the novel has been translated into sixteen languages. Considered a problem novel, or trauma novel, as noted by Barbara Tannert-Smith, Speak tells the story of Melinda Sordino, a fourteen-year-old girl struggling to cope with the trauma of rape. After a boy rapes her at a party, Melinda's peers ostracize her, because she cannot say why she called the police. As a result, Melinda stops speaking, seeing silence as a healthier social alternative to speech. Melinda's voice is expressed mainly through the art produced for Mr.Freeman's class. This expression slowly allows Melinda to acknowledge that she was raped, to face her attacker, and to repair her shattered identity.

Speak has won several awards including: 2000 ALA Best Book for Young Adults (cite), 2000 ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults (cite), 2000 ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (cite), (etc.). The novel also received the Printz Honor award in 2000 (cite).

Awards for Speak

 * 1999 National Book Awards Young People's Literature Finalist


 * 2000 ALA Best Book for Young Adults
 * 2000 Printz Honor Book
 * 2000 ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults
 * 2000 ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

Sources for Revision
Most Useful:

1. Politicizing young adult literature

2. Melinda's Closet

3. Falling Up into a Storybook

4. Why Won't Melinda Just Talk

5. Children's Literature Review

6. ??? peer-reviewed??? Between Voice and Voicelessness

7. Speaking Out

Less Useful:

8. Coming of Age in Suburbia

9. Memoirs of a Bathroom Stall

10. Monstrous Acts