"Disney is so good at being good that it manifests an evil; so uniformly efficient and courteous, so dependably
clean and conscientious, so unfailingly entertaining that it's unreal, and therefore is an agent of pure wickedness.
. . . Disney isn't in the business of exploiting Nature so much as striving to improve upon it, constantly fine-tuning
God's work."
--from Team Rodent
Random House / Ballantine Books Web site
February, 2000
Summary
For three years, writer Patricia Hersch journeyed inside a world that is as familiar as our own children and
yet as alien as some exotic culture - the world of adolescence. As a silent, attentive partner, she followed eight
teenagers in the typically American town of Reston, Virginia, listening to their stories, observing their rituals,
watching them fulfill their dreams and enact their tragedies. Without prejudice or stereotype, Hersch set out with
the goal of seeing adolescents as they see themselves. What she found was that America's teens have fashioned a
fully defined culture that adults neither see nor imagine - a culture of unequaled freedom and baffling complexity,
a culture with rules but no structure, values but no clear morality, codes but no consistency. Hersch also comes
to a sobering conclusion. It is society itself that has created this separate teen community, a world where kids
are left on their own to make their own choices and determine their own fates. Resigned to the attitude that adolescents
simply live in "a tribe apart," adults have pulled away, relinquishing responsibility and supervision,
allowing the unhealthy behaviors of teens to flourish. Ultimately, this rift between adults and teenagers robs
both generations of meaningful connections.