"Our lips met... I felt a few stray whiskers... and suddenly I realized that this was a grown man who was giving me my first real kiss... Something inside me snapped. Now I didn't want this at all. But I couldn't speak." Fourteen-year-old Katherine Tarbox wasn't sure how things had gone so wrong. She had planned to slip away during a school trip to meet 27-year-old Mark, whom she had corresponded with on the Internet for the last six months. Instead, she discovered that "Mark" was actually Frank Kufrovich, a man in his forties with a history of pedophilia.
Katie.com is Katherine Tarbox's true story of how Kufrovich used the Internet to manipulate and molest her, and how she fought back by prosecuting him under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and sharing her experiences so that other teens might avoid a similar situation.
The saddest thing about Katie's memoir are the reasons she sought company on the Internet in the first place. Over and over she states that her mother was a workaholic who had little time for her. She was growing apart from her childhood friends and her oldest sister and confidante was always away at school. Like most teens, Katie was searching for someone or something to connect with--a search her own parents tragically didn't seem to recognize. Articulate, strong and brutally honest, Katie.com should be shared between adults and teens alike, not only as a warning against Internet dangers, but also as a reminder that a computer can never be a replacement for a caring, listening parent. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert
