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AFTERSHOCK | A BRIEF CHAPTER... | CHILL | THE WOLF

AFTERSHOCK by Kelly Easton, 2006, 165 pages

Seventeen-year-old Adam is an only child and close to his parents.  On their way home to Rhode Island from a peace rally in Seattle , their car strikes a deer crossing the road.  In the tragic aftermath, Adam discovers his parents are dead.  Injured and in shock, Adam begins to walk down the highway in the wilds of Idaho .  He has no I.D., no money and can’t speak.  His only goal is to get home…more than a thousand miles away. 

Adam is taken in by strangers, cared for and even given a job, but his voice has deserted him.  While he heals physically, on the inside Adam is emotionally destroyed.  He remembers scenes from his life before the accident, but cannot express his needs either vocally or by writing them down.  He mentally records his life in terms of vocabulary words and their remembered definitions--truncate, fortitude, elongate and rectify.

Adam’s journey home takes him far from the life he knew with his loving family, and just when it appears his goal is in sight, his latent anger and grief betray him.

Will he ever reach his home, the bookstore where he and his parents worked together?  Will he ever see Mira, his girlfriend, again?  What will home be like now that his parents are gone? 

Kelly Easton has written a powerful and sobering tale of tragic loss and the mind’s ability to cope with the aftershock.  This young adult novel is recommended for readers in grades 9-12.

--Reviewed by Marsha Bates, Mid-Columbia Libraries

A BRIEF CHAPTER IN MY IMPOSSIBLE LIFE  by Dana Reinhardt , 2006, 228 pages

  Simone is adopted.  She knows she is adopted.  All you have to do is look at her dark, almond shaped eyes and olive complexion and then at the sandy blonde hair and fair complexion of her parents and younger brother, and you know.  But she also knows because her parents have told her.  She even knows her birth mother’s name – Rivka.  She knows this because her parents explained it to her before she was old enough to tell them that she didn’t want to know.  Simone is happy in her comfortable little 16 year-old, high-school world and she would like to keep it that way.  But all this changes the night her parents announce at dinner, “Rivka called.  She wants to meet you.”  And her parents push her call her back!  Simone fights it, but eventually she does make that call, thus beginning this brief chapter in her impossible life.

In one short year, Simone’s comfortable existence will be turned on its head as she meets, learns to love, and then loses, the birth mother she never thought she wanted to know.  During that time she also must deal with more typical high school events – her first boyfriend, her best friend’s adventures into sex, the SAT’s, and her views about religion, just to name a few.  A coming of age novel that truly touches the heart, I highly recommend A BRIEF CHAPTER IN MY IMPOSSIBLE LIFE by Dana Reinhardt.  Recommended for readers in grades 8 to 12.

--Reviewed by Joyce Willis , Mid-Columbia Libraries

CHILL by Colin Frizzell, 2006, 98 pages.

Frizzell packs a lot of wry wisdom in this novella for teens.  Best friends Chill Holinground and Sean Fitzsimmons have been buddies since grade school.  Chill has a bum leg but doesn’t consider himself handicapped and certainly knows how to put bullies in their place.  He’s a good student and a fantastic artist.  Sean, on the other hand, wants to be a writer and eagerly anticipates the new English teacher’s arrival at high school.

On the first day of school, the art teacher, Ms. Surrette, asks Chill to submit a design for a mural to be painted in the high school foyer.  Later, in English class, the boys are shocked to discover the new teacher, Mr. Sfinkter (pronounced with a long I) seems arrogant and dictatorial.  Chill gets off to a bad start by mispronouncing his name and Mr. Sfinkter retaliates by making fun of Chill’s limp. 

Sean resents the teacher’s comments about his friend, but is willing to overlook a bad first impression.  He’s excited to learn that Mr. Sfinkter is a published author and wants to get Sfinkter’s opinion on his writing abilities.

Mr. Sfinkter assigns his students to write about their dreams for the future.  Then one by one he proceeds to publicly shred each student’s idealistic hopes.  Chill grows more upset every day, but Sean is thrilled when Sfinkter promises to read his manuscript and perhaps even get it published. 

The oppression of the students in English class and Sean’s refusal to admit that Mr. Sfinkter is a bully drives a wedge between the two friends.  In the meantime, Chill’s mural design wins the contest and he and Sean start to work on it together.  They paint beneath a tarp to keep the design a secret until the final unveiling, but Sean finds it increasingly difficult to work with Chill who’s not talking to him. 

Sean’s optimism about his book is crushed when Sfinkter refuses to read it and reneges on his promise to help Sean get published.  In the climactic unveiling of the mural in front of students, faculty and local news reporters, everyone is shocked to see Chill’s  expose of a  bully’s tactics.   The resulting melee proves who are the real heroes and villains.

As Frizzell points out in this quick read, bullies come in all sizes and ages and are not above using their powers to control and persecute innocent victims.   Recommended for readers in grades 7-12.

--Reviewed by Marsha Bates, Mid-Columbia Libraries

THE WOLF by Steven Herrick, 2007, 214 pages

Australian author, Steven Herrick has written a free verse portrait of two isolated teens in the outback. In alternating points of view sixteen-year-old Lucy and fifteen-year-old Jake tell the story of what happens when their fathers attempt to hunt down a wolf that’s been killing sheep.  Everyone knows there are no wolves in Australia , but Jake’s dad saw the creature in the wild and has told stories about it all of Jake’s life. 

Lucy’s dad just likes to shoot things, but the wolf, or wild dog as Lucy speculates, is too canny to be killed or captured.  Her abusive dad transfers his to hostility from Lucy to the howling creature that keeps them awake at night.

Jake is of two minds.  He hates that the wolf has killed his dad’s sheep.  He knows how hard his dad works to make a living.  But just once he’d like to see the elusive animal of his father’s stories. 

Jake and Lucy decide to look for the wolf on Sheldon Mountain.  Even though they’re classmates at school and neighbors, they know little of each other.  On the journey up the mountain that changes.  Jake realizes Lucy isn’t just looking for a wild dog.  She’s made a decision to stand up for herself in the face of her father’s abuse, even if it means leaving home.  When Jake is injured on the mountain, Lucy must make a decision: abandon Jake and run away from her unhappy life or allow her growing attraction to Jake to fill the loneliness of her existence.

Herrick’s touching novel tells a story of shame, conflict, adventure and hope with the life-altering experience of The Wolf.  This book is recommended for teens in grades 7-12.

--Reviewed by Marsha Bates, Mid-Columbia Libraries