Product Description

Pennsbury High School would be like any other were it not for one thing: its prom. Its spring dance is considered by Reader's Digest to be one of "America's best legacies." Wonderland is the inspiring true story of a dance floor and the kids who fill it: a tale of hope, sex, love, and loss. For one year, the students, parents, and teachers of Pennsbury invited Michael Bamberger, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, into their classrooms, their homes, their parties, and their dreams. He discovered an extraordinary and disparate group of everyday teenagers whose stories were touching, odd, funny, and beautiful.

In Wonderland, lives intersect in unpredictable ways and are never what they appear to be. The star quarterback hides the pain of not knowing where his father is. The senior in low-cut jeans and the black Corvette doesn't realize she is idolized. A student with cerebral palsy is desperate to learn to tie English Scout knots, despite a useless left hand. And then there is Bob Costa, who dreams of making his name and bringing glory to the school by convincing John Mayer, whose song "Your Body is a Wonderland" is an anthem for the students, to perform at the prom. Critically, acclaimed in hardcover, Wonderland is published in paperback with a new afterword by the author. It is "the rare high school story that refrains from sensationalizing its subject matter, and instead offers an image of optimism and the occasional dose of heartbreak.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #962822 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-08
• Released on: 2005-03-08
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .70 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
For the last 30 years, Pennsbury High, a huge public school in Fairless Hills, Pa., has staged such an over-the-top senior prom that thousands of local residents turn out on prom night just to watch the seniors enter their "Wonderland." Bamberger, a Sports Illustrated senior writer, spent a school year with Pennsbury's seniors, recording their "true-life" stories. Since prom planning starts in September and climaxes in May, the event is both a good hook for readers and a convenient organizational device for various subplots that develop month by month. Will up-and-coming musician John Mayer finally agree to play for the prom? Will Rob and Stephanie still go to the prom, now that they're parents of a newborn baby? Will Lindsey keep co-chairing the prom committee even though she needs heart surgery? Bamberger cuts from one subplot to the next like a seasoned TV soap director, breaking away from each story just when it gets juicy. While much of the drama is about who's attracted to whom (high school kids are "on display, like mating birds"), for variety there's an ace student involved in a drinking death, another coping with cerebral palsy, some with college admissions problems, one or two kids planning for upward mobility via sports, plus a few faculty members with their own issues. Bamberger's teens may not be 100% typical, but they offer a good window onto at least a segment of contemporary teen culture.
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From Booklist
Pennsbury is a typical, middle-class American high school not particularly distinguishable from others except for its larger-than-life prom productions. For more than 30 years, the school has carried on a tradition of such elaborate proms that it attracts occasional media attention, and neighbors line up to watch the parade of promgoers who have in past years passed by in cement mixers and dogsleds. Eschewing hotels and banquet halls, Pennsbury students hold their prom at the school but with extraordinary fanfare and decorations. Bamberger focuses on the prom from its planning in September until the big night in May, chronicling what compels students, parents, and teachers to invest so much of themselves in the prom and exploring what the productions signify about life in contemporary America. Among those he follows: Matt, who has progressed from the class clown to class president, and Stephanie and Rob, new teen parents who must find a baby-sitter so they can attend the prom. Bamberger's account is an amusing and insightful look at an American rite of passage. Vanessa Bush
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