Stand Up!: Be an Upstander and Make a Difference

by Wendy L. Moss PhD

Overview

Chock full of quizzes, examples, practical advice, and small steps you can take in your real life, Stand Up! takes readers through the ways to be an Upstander, including being kind to yourself, having empathy for others, spreading kindness, and dealing with conflicts.

Do you want to be an Upstander who makes the world a better place by standing up to bullying and injustice in your school, home, or community? If so, this book is for you! You may doubt that one kid can make a difference. You can't fly like Wonder Woman or scale walls like Spiderman, but you could be a hero to someone else by speaking up. Small changes can lead to bigger and bigger changes!

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433835308
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Publication date:	08/05/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	50 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

About the Author

Wendy L. Moss, PhD, ABPP, FAASP, has her doctorate in clinical psychology, is a licensed psychologist, and has a certification in school psychology. Dr. Moss has practiced in the field of psychology for over 30 years and has worked in hospital, residential, private practice, clinic, and school settings. She has the distinction of being recognized as a diplomate in school psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology for her advanced level of competence in the field of school psychology. Dr. Moss has been appointed as a fellow in the American Academy of School Psychology. In addition, she is the author of Bounce Back: How to Be a Resilient Kid, Being Me: A Kid's Guide to Boosting Confidence and Self-Esteem, and Children Don't Come With an Instruction Manual: A Teacher's Guide to Problems That Affect Learners; coauthor, with Donald A. Moses, MD, of The Tween Book: A Growing-Up Guide for the Changing You; coauthor, with Robin A. DeLuca-Acconi, LCSW, of School Made Easier: A Kid's Guide to Study Strategies and Anxiety-Busting Tools; coauthor, with Susan A. Taddonio, DPT, of The Survival Guide for Kids With Physical Disabilities & Challenges; and has written several articles.

Editorial Reviews

12/02/2019

This guidebook tackles how to be an “Upstander”—a “positive bystander” who “stand up for themselves and others”—through explaining positive self-talk, self-regulation, judicious intervention, realistic goals, teamwork, and persistence. Chapters open with multiple-choice quizzes, and Moss deploys direct-address questions to engage readers: “If you decide to work toward your goal in a group, do you think that you should allow everyone who is interested to join?” But formal language (“Connor struggled with... frustration tolerance”) tells instead of shows, and Moss’s composite examples feel institutional, obviously constructed to impart lessons. More problematic is the sense of equivocation—in the age of Greta Thunberg, Moss’s emphasis on small steps and manageable goals may not appease kids eager to spark change. Ages 13–up. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

As mentioned in The Wall Street Journal

“Every layer increases the book’s clarity. This is a polished, consistent, and ultimately fun text. Stand Up! is jam-packed with tools and materials that solidify how critical it is to stand up for what is right—useful for young readers and their educators alike.” —Foreword Reviews

“A guide on how to take on the role… provides bullet points of advice, suggesting how a young person can regulate negative emotions.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Considering the recent flood of advice books for young adults penned by social media influencers, it’s a huge plus that this one is written by a highly experienced clinical psychologist. Give to tweens who want to take action and become positive forces in their communities.” —School Library Journal

“This guidebook tackles how to be an ‘Upstander’—a ‘positive bystander’ who ‘stand[s] up for themselves and others’—through explaining positive self-talk, self-regulation, judicious intervention, realistic goals, teamwork, and persistence… deploys direct-address questions to engage readers.” —Publishers Weekly
 

From the Publisher

12/01/2019

Gr 6–10—Moss defines the term upstander as "a person who stands up to support fairness and respect while also trying to decrease bullying and injustice." The book provides examples of good deeds that will positively impact one's community. Quizzes ask students how they would react in certain situations, allowing them to evaluate their own communication skills. An early chapter explains how young people must learn to be kind to themselves before they can help others. The following chapters cover empathy, compromise, conflict resolution, and antibullying techniques. The simple explanation of these concepts makes the book accessible to middle school readers. Concrete examples of how to make a difference at home (doing a chore without parents asking), at school (giving a "Kindness Certificate" to show appreciation to helpful classmates), and in one's community (visiting the elderly at a nursing home) show tweens real tasks they can try in order to improve their world. If they have more complex actions to tackle, they can break them down into manageable steps by creating a ladder chart with the goal written at the top. VERDICT Considering the recent flood of advice books for young adults penned by social media influencers, it's a huge plus that this one is written by a highly experienced clinical psychologist. Give to tweens who want to take action and become positive forces in their communities.—Amy Duffy, Chicago Public Library

School Library Journal

2019-09-15
A guide on how to take on the role of an "Upstander," someone who "supports fairness and respect while also trying to decrease bullying and injustice."

Young people today live in a world where almost daily they have to navigate injustice, whether personally or as a witness to the suffering of their peers, and this book aims to give them help with that. Short quizzes opening each thematic chapter help readers understand where they may stand when confronted with challenging situations; these are followed by illustrative scenarios. In the chapter "Kindness and Anger Can Be Contagious," a student learns that he wasn't invited to a friend's birthday gathering, then takes out his anger on his sibling. Following the story, the author provides bullet points of advice, suggesting how a young person can regulate negative emotions. This example is one of many where, in seeking accessible universality, the book unfortunately falls short as a 21st-century motivation guide. Moss fails to specifically address current issues that young people face daily. She briefly name-checks Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. but doesn't address everyday racism. There is no mention of LGBTQ issues nor the intolerance that many immigrant students must confront daily. A two-and-a-half page section on stereotypes wanly makes an attempt but falls far short.

Lacking tough, real-world examples, this sanitized guide fails in its mission. (Nonfiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews