Second Star to the Right

Leslie Hiller's world is growing smaller. It used to be large enough to include her worrisome but loving mother, her doting father, her close friend Cavette, and all the other people and places that made up her upper-class, A+ life. But now it has shrunk to the size of a dinner plate full of food--which she scrapes out her bedroom window to avoid eating. Leslie, a perfectionist who loves to be in control, finds she can't control the fear that she will somehow fail to be the perfect daughter, perfect student, and perfect friend. So she decides to master the one thing over which she is certain she has complete domain: food. Even when it becomes apparent to everyone that her severe dieting has become a life-threatening habit, Leslie still can't stop: "I want to be happy. And being happy means being thin."

Author Deborah Hautzig, who recounts her own painful battle with anorexia in a very personal and heartfelt afterword, gives Leslie a frighteningly realistic voice that will ring true to teens everywhere. First published in 1981, Second Star to the Right has risen again to give a new generation of young adults valuable insight into the addictive world of anorexia, and hope for getting out from under the cruel thumb of the disease. (Ages 12 to 15) --Jennifer Hubert