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Degrassi expands into booksby BOB REMINGTONSo what exactly went on in that bedroom between Spike and Shane?If you follow Degrassi Junior High, you know they went into a bedroom at Lucy’s party and that Spike got pregnant. But, as the song says, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. Until now.Degrassi Junior High (which airs Mondays on CBC) is being made into a series of paperbacks dealing with various characters from the realistic, award-winning Canadian program. Like the series, the books are targeted at early teens and pre-teens. They expand on the personal lives of the characters in more detailthan is permitted in prime time. And the one titled Spike (Lorimer and Co., $4.95) could be subtitled Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Didn’t Get to See onTV.”Early in its 116 pages, we find out that the awkward young couple really didn’t mean for things to go as farAmanda Steptoas they did, and that “the actual sex part” only lasted a few seconds before they were interrupted by a knock on the door.The bedroom portion reads almost like a prepubescent trash novel, but there is more to Spike than pre-teen titillation. The book gives a sensitive rendering of the cons-quences of sex and the trauma of teen pregnancy.Re told is the anguish-filledscene between Spike and her mother, as well as Spike’s gutsy decision to return to school pregnant and the even more difficult choice of keeping her baby and raising it at the tender age of 14, while still going to school.“It is basically the story of Spike,” says Loretta Castellarin, a Degrassi researcher who co-authored the book with writer Ken Roberts. “It talks about how uncomfortable pregnancy can be physically, how it affects your social life, school, and your life.”Castellarin had already researched the issue of teen pregnancy for the series and used existing scripts to further develop Spike’s story for paperback. Spike (played in the series by 18-year-old Amanda Stepto) is written in the first person and, like the show, relates the issue without moralizing.“Kids this age are looking for information,” says Castellarin. “Because the book is told through Spike, it's like having a friend. It’s not an adult telling them what to do.” i
Newspaper Details
Brandon Sun
Brandon, Manitoba, CA
Fri, Dec 30, 1988
Page 106
Full Page
Clipped by
Aarron L.
USA 28 Apr 2021
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