Life Choices: The Gift

I read this book to my 10 and 12 year olds before bedtime, and they were tranfixed. We had an hour long conversation about all the themes in the book--they asked what an STD was, the purple thing (condom) the girl showed the guy, the sadness of abortion. Honestly, this little book did a lot of heavy lifting so I could have a chance to talk to my kids. My 14 year old read it in private and she said "it was good." My 16 year old son read it, and didn't comment much on it, because we have talked about these issues before---but I like to revisit these topics about once ayear with my kids so things sink in. So it was a very good tool for parenting with open communication about these topics. Well done!!!

What I really like about The Gift is that you are able to concentrate on the issue of the baby's life since all the other characters are good. The boy and girl (Josh and Casey) are both good people who want the best for each other, and their parents are good people. You are able to see that even when everyone has good intentions, abortion is never the answer.
It definitely feels on the nose and like it's giving information, but how else are you going to give information? It's still all part of the story, which is presented in a beautiful format. It at least gets subject of teen pregnancy and babies' lives out there into exposure. It probably wouldn't do the whole job on its own, but accompanied by trusted, charitable guidance, I bet this book could get a lot of teens thinking more deeply about their choices. It's great to at least get the subject out of the shadows. Definitely read it for yourself and see what you think!

As a fomer DCF CPS teenager myself I picked up this comic book hoping it would be a good tool to help with current generation of DFC CPS teens with there self esteem thus making better lifee choices.

The pros for this comic book was how It was laid out very simple I also liked how they were realistic as far as high school interaction between different races clicks and so on very realistic and true to real life along with peer pressure I also like how similar to the book series you choose your history you and get to choose three different routes to see the consequences of each action.

That being said I do think it fell flat and came off rather preachy which would really be a turn off to teens who are already impressionable even in a stable home environment

I also felt certain scenes were not realistic for example when they talk about birth control failing I applaud the fact that they are actually taking a fair balance approach as far it takes two to tango and it's not just the girls fault however speaking realistically from real life experience high schools don't offer health education and when they do they very rarely talk about birth control and how and why it fails in detail I also felt like the main character blaming their high school health educator for not truthfully telling them about using birth control and it's failure consequences could be misunderstood by real life teens to avoid taking responsibility for their actions and thus blaming the issue on someone else.

Also in one scene which dealt with the consequences of abortions there was interchanging terminology using the teen Biology book would rather graphically shows a developing embryo and not clarifying as far as what a full-term baby and an embryo is and the stages of development again realistically that could psychologically cause more pain teens need to respect and understand the life growing inside of them but it needs to be done in an empathetic manner while giving them a balanced approach between faith if applicable to their situation and medical science I think a more appropriate response would have been the girl crying and showing her boyfriend the developing embryo and her Biology book and saying we gave life and we took it I wish we asked for help before we even consented to this abortion we did a very stupid thing together with both of our life choices.

Finally in the back which has a different discussion answers I did not agree with the treatment of not only avoiding the actual word rape which is a very important topic that every parent should have with their teenagers but how it was lumped together with other pregnancy choices a child conceived in rape is a very psychological and physically delicate Manner and should have been treated separately versus lumped in with other unplanned pregnancies

Overall this is a great start but I would not feel comfortable using this with my teens both inside and outside of church groups because I'm concerned if I'm not there to educate them they might misunderstand the message in this comic book especially some of the teens that have been through sexual trauma and are currently pregnant in my group and are in a very traumatic life choice situation if the comic book updated these issues and address these I'll gladly rebuy this but for now I'm sticking with one comic book to use with my teen church group with other more suitable age appropriate Church material dealing with abortion

Coming from a teen's perspective I thought it was well portrayed and liked how the book made you sort of make the decisions. After reading through it all it made me thonk more about the consequences of my actions more. Well done Voyage Comics!

The graphic comic style is appealing to teens!
I loved the message. Well written with all included options. It was GREAT!