2003 Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel (nominee)
Can honesty be the worst policy?
Sixteen-year-old Bernadette Terrell is a champion debater who loves books, contests, and winning. When she's named captain of her school's Classics Bowl team to compete on TV against an elite private school for the state title, she's thrilled. It's more than a chance to earn glory for her town, and scholarship money for her family - not to mention make non-fictional friends. She's been training for this her whole life. Winning is her destiny.
Or is it? On the eve of the championship match, she discovers that someone she trusts has cheated. And Bernadette is the only one who knows. An honors student who's always been sure of the right thing to do, she wonders just what that might be, now that "winning" has a new meaning. And yet - it's still a competition. And she's still a girl who hates to lose.
Cappo's blend of suspense and humor makes Cheating Lessons a riveting story about right and wrong - and the downside of trust.
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Sixteen-year-old Bernadette Terrell is a champion debater who loves books, contests, and winning. When she's named captain of her school's Classics Bowl team to compete on TV against an elite private school for the state title, she's thrilled. It's more than a chance to earn glory for her town, and scholarship money for her family - not to mention make non-fictional friends. She's been training for this her whole life. Winning is her destiny.
Or is it? On the eve of the championship match, she discovers that someone she trusts has cheated. And Bernadette is the only one who knows. An honors student who's always been sure of the right thing to do, she wonders just what that might be, now that "winning" has a new meaning. And yet - it's still a competition. And she's still a girl who hates to lose.
Cappo's blend of suspense and humor makes Cheating Lessons a riveting story about right and wrong - and the downside of trust.
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Used availability for Nan Willard Cappo's Cheating Lessons