Paula Danziger Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Zena Sutherland

Critical Essay by Zena Sutherland

[In Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice?, Lauren's parents] give her trouble, particularly her father, who is domineering; she's also troubled by her parents' fighting. Such general problems are the background for a wry and humorous story of Lauren's coping with the conformity her classmates and friends expect…. While Lauren is confronting the generation gap, establishing independence, giving adherence to standards of social behavior, and other universal problems of the adolescent, the book has enough humor and breezy dialogue to make it fun to read, and enough solidity in characters and relationships to make it thought-provoking. (pp. 172-73)

Zena Sutherland, "New Titles for Children and Young People: 'Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice?'" in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press; © 1979 by the University of Chicago), Vol. 32, No. 10, June, 1979, pp. 172-73.