David A. Bedford has written an incisive book about teens in Angela 1: Starting Over. I personally have a little problem believing that teenagers would be able to make the adults in their lives believe a conspiracy about the school district, especially one as shocking as the one Mr. Bedford describes. But I do believe that they would be involved in bullying and, depending on their maturity, handle it as well as Angela and her friends do. It is a good lesson for teenagers to learn about bullying and how to handle it. The description of how a school board works is fine, except for the part about the board making decisions in executive session and then not voting on them in open session.

“Angela grew up in San Antonio, quite happy and content until the day, just under a year before, her father came into her room to talk. Angela knew something was wrong the instant she saw him.”

Angela moves with her mother and little sister to Corpus Christi, Texas when her father leaves her mother. She is enrolled in honors classes and excels in her classes because of the educational work ethics taught by her mother, a librarian. She makes friends easily with like-minded students. But, for some reason, there is a clique who begins to harass her. There are several incidents that make it look like she is the troublemaker and she has to count on her honesty and her mother to prove she has done nothing wrong.
Angela and her friends go to the school board to right the injustices and show the board something that is much more disturbing than the bullying. Will they prove their innocence? Will they prove that there is criminal activity involved in the addition to their school? Read Mr. Bedford’s exciting and interesting book about the adolescents and adults in the school.
David Bedford grew up in Argentina, then received his BA and MA in French at Texas Tech University with a minor in Spanish. He earned his Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education at the University of Texas at Austin and his MA in Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is now a faculty member and Spanish instructor at Texas Christian University. He is in the process of writing two sequels to Angela and has published a book of Spanish short stories.