Abbott, Tony. Summer Of Owen Todd.

Abbott, Tony.  Summer Of Owen Todd. Macmillan/Farrar Strauss  2017 217p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-374-30550-5  elem/ms  Realistic Fiction VG-BN        

Owen and Sean have been best friends forever and are looking forward to the end of their sixth-grade year and a summer of freedom. But Sean’s mother hires a twenty-something-year-old EMT and church friend named Paul to be Sean’s baby-sitter for the summer because Sean is a diabetic. When Sean confides in Owen that Paul has been doing things to him that just don’t feel right and are sexual in nature, he makes Owen promise not to tell another soul.
    

This well-written novel describes the abuse of an adolescent by an adult. While the plot is unsettling and includes painful themes, it is handled in a sensitive and delicate manner. While the scenes are not at all graphic, they are disturbing.
    

Despite the difficult content of the novel, Tony Abbott has interwoven the themes of friendship, the beautiful Cape Cod setting, family, and friends throughout it. Additionally, the story is told from the perspective of the friend and not the victim, and (spoiler alert), a true friend doing the right thing as a true friend should. The pain and fear that Owen experiences are also convincingly described from the point of view of a child that age.
    

Responsibly, Abbott has also supplied resources for readers experiencing abuse or those who may know someone in that situation.  He advises adolescents with questions to seek advice from parents and counselors as well as other recommended resources. However, this information is provided in the author’s note, and maybe it would have been better if it had been included directly at the end of the story.

The novel is recommended for any upper-elementary or middle-school library. It describes the unfortunate abuse of a child in an empathetic manner, and is a story that demands discussion.

Summary: Owen and Sean have been best friends forever, and when Sean tells Owen, and no one else, what his baby-sitter is doing to him, he makes Owen promise not to tell anyone else.  The baby-sitter is a twenty-something-year-old hired by his mother because Sean is a diabetic.

Child abuse - Fiction                              --Virginia McGarvey

Hautman, Pete. Slider.

Hautman, Pete. Slider. Candlewick Press  2017 278p $16.99    978-0-7636-9070-0  ms/jr  Realistic Fiction  E-BN     

David Miller can eat. He’s an average kid, but has a special talent --  despite his small size, he can put away an entire pizza himself in less than four minutes.  He is in awe of other food champions, which leads him to steal his mother’s credit card to purchase the half-eaten hot dog of one of his food-contest idols, Jooky Garafalo. But, he mixes up his decimal points, and ends up bidding $2,000 instead of $2 on his winning bid.  Along with his sidekicks, Cyn and Heyman, he concocts a plan to earn back the money: he will follow in the footsteps of his heroes and enter food-eating contests. 

David must train if he is to beat his competition, and so he eats heads of cabbages, entire pizzas, and bags full of hamburgers.  His training is complicated by his caring for his brother Mal who is autistic, but for whom that label is forbidden in the Miller home, plus the normal problems confronting 12-year-old boys on the brink of adolescence.

Pete Hautman tells David's hilarious story in the first-person voice. Despite the larger-than-life characters and implausible plot, the story rings true because of David’s family, friendships, and voice.     This is a hysterically funny book for middle-school and junior-high students.    

Summary: After “borrowing” his mother’s credit card and making a $2,000 mistake, David Miller enters food-eating contests to earn back the money he owes her before she learns the truth.

Humor-Fiction                                      --Lisa Teixeira

Demetrios, Heather. Bad Romance.

Demetrios, Heather. Bad Romance. Macmillan/Henry Holt       2017  360p. $17.99  ISBN 978-1-62779-772-6      hs       Realistic Fiction          E-BN

Grace, a junior in high school, lives in a dysfunctional household with her mother and the bullying stepfather she calls The Giant.  She wants to save money so that she can escape her life and move to a city for college.  Her plans go awry when she falls for Gavin, a popular senior rock star in the making.  Narrated in the first person by Grace, the novel tells us right away that the relationship was doomed, and that she ignored significant red flags, the chief one being Gavin’s failed suicide attempt when his last relationship failed. 

Despite warnings from her sister and her friend, smart, witty Grace is slow to realize that she is in a controlling, emotionally abusive relationship.  The promise of love and protection, a respite from her Cinderella-like home life, is intoxicating.  Yet in the end, Grace learns to rely upon her friends and her own inner strength to break free of the cycle of abuse. 

With the currency of the #metoo movement, this realistic look at abuse in a teenage relationship will resonate with young women with a message of strength and resiliency. 

Summary: When popular Gavin starts a relationship with nerdy Grace, she can’t believe her good fortune, until she realizes that Gavin isn’t as perfect as he seems.                                         

Abusive Relationships-Fiction                              --Lisa Teixeira

Moon, Sarah. Sparrow.

Moon, Sarah. Sparrow. Scholastic/Arthur Levine  2017   264p.            $18.99  ISBN 978-1-338-03258-1       ms/hs            Realistic Fiction          VG-BN         

Sparrow does not have friends and really doesn’t know how to make friends.  To escape the stress of life, she flies.  She sees birds and takes off with them in flight.  One day at school she is on the roof and it is assumed she wants to jump.  After a stay in the hospital, she is sent home on the condition that she meet with a therapist.  Sparrow is very slow to open up at all (and it takes 90 pages). The therapist is the most patient person on the planet.  Eventually Sparrow is open enough to try attending a camp for rock musicians.  Among other things, Sparrow learns that other girls have problems too, but they learn how to deal with them.
  

The writing is in the first person so the reader really knows what Sparrow is thinking.  The beginning leads the reader to think that Sparrow is weird, but as the story progresses the reader comes to sympathize with and better understand her.  The triumph Sparrow experiences at the end makes the whole story worthwhile.
  

Although every teenage girl feels disconnected at times in their teen years, it takes a mature reader to handle Sparrow’s thinking.  It may give hope to others who are feeling isolated, but some would not be able to cope with all of Sparrow's thoughts.  

Summary: To escape her social ineptness, Sparrow tunes out and flies.  The story concerns her learning to cope and improve very slowly with the help of a therapist.  About an eighth grader, but psychologically very deep.  Grade 7 up.                               

Shyness-Fiction, Social skills-Fiction                             --Joan Theal

Stork, Francisco X. Disappeared.

Stork, Francisco X.  Disappeared. Scholastic/Arthur Levine     2017     326p.  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-545-94447-2    hs       Realistic Fiction          E-BN

Sara Zapata is an up-and-coming reporter in Ciudad Juarez invesigating the Desaparacidas, young women kidnapped and trafficked by the ruling drug cartel.  The story is personal, as her best friend Linda disappeared over four months ago.  When she receives an encrypted message threatening both her life and that of her family, she decides to intensify her digging to save Linda and uncover the truth. 

Her brother Emiliano is a high-school soccer star and the boyfriend of Perla Rubi, the wealthy daughter of one of the cartel’s lawyers who offers entrepreneurial Emiliano financial security, but with a hefty cost to his conscience. 

This fast-paced thriller takes place in one eventful week when Sara discovers the whereabouts of her friend Linda, and the identities of her captors, Emiliano’s new business associates.  This forces Sara and Emiliano to flee Mexico, pursued by the cartel.
 
This timely, beautifully written, harrowing story vividly depicts how Mexico’s poverty, corruption, and violence forces young people like Sara and Emiliano to risk illegal and unsafe border crossing in hopes for not only a better life, but life itself.  This is YA literature at its best.                                     

Summary: Siblings Sara and Emiliano Zapata must escape their home in Ciudad Juarez after they are targeted by the ruling drug cartel for Sara’s exposé about the cartel’s involvement in trafficking.          

Drug trafficking-Fiction, Mexico-Fiction             --Lisa Teixeira