Katie.com: One Girl's Loss of Innocence - Softcover

Tarbox, Katherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752842986 ISBN 13: 9780752842981

Publisher: Gollancz, 2001

Synopsis

Aged 13 Katie met 'Mark' in a chat room on America Online. He said he was 23 and a college student; he recognised her 'as someone different from a typical 13-year-old,' she says. In his eyes, she seemed to be sophisticated. Mature. Within a month, their relationship graduated to the phone. She was a top student and nationally ranked swimmer, but where most of the adults in her life told her to work harder, he encouraged her, made her laugh. Eventually, he made her feel loved. After six months, Katie agreed to meet him when she was in Texas with her swimming team for a meet. He got a room at the hotel where Katie, her team-mates and her mum were staying. But when she went to his room to meet him, the man she thought was her cyber-soul mate turned out to be not Mark, 23, but Frank, a 41-year-old paedophile. Police came banging on the door after her roommate, panicked and told Katie's mom. Shunned by her parents, called a slut by her classmates, this was the beginning of a nightmare.

About this title

Review

We'd all like to think we're being a little overprotective imagining the Net's awash with sexual predators. The truth may be somewhat less comfortable, as one woman's real-life story demonstrates in painful detail.

At the age of 13, Katie Tarbox met a guy online whom she knew only as "Mark", age 23, in a chatroom on the purportedly oh-so-safe AOL. "Mark" courted her online for six months, mainly by playing cynically on her desire for love and acceptance. Some time after Katie turned 14, she agreed to meet "Mark" offline, a flesh-meet, near Dallas, Texas, where she would be swimming in a tournament. "Mark" then revealed himself as Frank, paedophile, age 41. Because a swimming team-mate had alerted the police, Frank was the first person in the US to be prosecuted for sexually harassing a minor via the Web. Katie then suffered classmates' opprobrium, and a devastating lack of understanding from her parents. Her story is nothing less than horrifying, and her plain-speaking, rather unemotional storytelling serves only to underscore her pain.

The book demonstrates, however, that an older Katherine (now 18) has in some ways come to terms with her experience and takes a practical approach to protecting others in her former shoes. She lists "suggestions for protecting your children while online" (see also Parry Aftab's Parent's Guide to Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace. Her parting words to her readers are, "Before going I'd like to recommend a list of Internet sites that can be beneficial in helping to make the Internet a safe place." Would that her younger self had known about such sites. A cautionary tale, lest you think the Net is a bit of harmless fun. --Liz Bailey

Book Description

The frightening true story of a teenager's search for love and attention online

About this edition

• Publisher: Gollancz
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0752842986
• ISBN 13: 9780752842981
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208