Field Guide to the North American Teenager

Content Warning: The section of the guide features depictions of racism and bigoted language.

“‘Your mouth, boy!’ Judith said, stopping short of poking Norris in his chest. ‘Your fricking mouth. This is a new school, and these people don’t know you yet. So watch what you say to them. There are no such things as second impressions.’”

As Judith drops Norris off for his first day at school in Austin, Texas, she reminds him to watch his mouth, knowing that Norris tends to get himself in trouble with his snarky, irreverent comments. This quote relates to the theme of The Impact of Words, with Norris’s mouth acting as a motif.

“If the flavors were different—pack of quirky outsiders here, ruthless-borderline-feral popular girls there—it all mostly amounted to one thing: in versus out. Norris Kaplan—black French Canadian Norris Kaplan—had no delusion about where he would fall in that demarcation.”

After a long list of American teen movies and television that Norris has consumed, Norris assesses where he might fall within the stereotypical American high school social hierarchy, concluding that he’s destined to be an outcast. This quote relates to the theme of The Influence of Stereotypes on Judgment by showing how Norris begins his time at Anderson High by judging people through the lens of stereotypes he’s absorbed through American media.

“‘What,’ she continued, smirking, ‘you thought everyone in Texas was a backwoods homophobe, is that it?’”

Maddie gives Norris a hard time for believing everyone in Texas is prejudiced against gay people. This quote develops the theme of The Impact of Stereotypes on Judgment by showing how Norris allows his judgment of Texans to come from his presumptions about them based on stereotypes.