The field guide review

The field guide- a guide for all teenager to survive through high school in a new environment

The field guide to the North American teenager is a good representation of what an immigrant teenager has to go through during high school. Ben Philippe used Norris story to create a sort of guide for any teenager of the 21th century.

The field guide is the story of Norris a black French-Canadian fan of hockey that has to move with his mum to Texas, in Austin. Through his observation he catalogues all the students in his new school; he uses those observation to protect himself from the danger of high school but also to find himself.

When Norris is hiding behind his observation and the stereotype that he had created, he is not able to see the “real” person behind; for example he categorized Maddi has the beta cheerleader, and for a while he believed that she was like the other, but when he gets to know her he discovers another person. He applied this “method” to everyone t everyone in the school and end up with a bunch of categories such as the jocks, the loners, the bullies, etc… The only to who he doesn’t apply this “method” is to Aarti because for him she seems to be like him, an immigrant that doesn’t look like the other. Through the book we can see Norris evolution in the Texan community, as we noticed when he left for vacation he sorts of missed Texas and his “new” friends. However, Aarti is not playing an important as we would of expected, while than Maddie through her advice his helping him to accept the fact this is his new life and that he needs to deal with it and take the best out of it.

Those stereotypes represented in the book had been put in the mind of people since there are young with the all TV shows. When you have never been to the United States you based your knowledge and expectation on what you think is the truth and what you saw. This novel helps to go over those stereotypes that we grew up with and try to be more objective on the situation and on situation like that. The book is proving us that stereotypes should not be here and not block the ability of someone to grow up with his differences and similarities.

 The field guide is a good novel that shows different thinks that contrasts at the end what we had been used to. We might have expected another end for the story but this one reflect the emotions and the evolution of Norris during the story. This is a good guide for teenagers that moves a lot.  

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