FernFolio » teenaged boys

Lunches with Lenin by Deborah Ellis

fernfolio — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:46:28 +0000

Matthew buys pot from Hammer, the high school football captain and local source for marijuana, though he knows he’s being overcharged and risks discovery by one of the sniffer dogs the school administration regularly bring in. Tahmina is proud of her expertise in harvesting opium from her father’s poppies, until disaster strikes and the local police move in and destroy the crop, leaving her father with few options to repay his debt to the local money lender. Fifteen-year old Brandon reacts with rage when he learns that all of his learning problems, and difficulties controlling his behaviour are consequences of his mother’s drinking when she was pregnant with him. Abandoned in Red Square, when he was a child of five, by his mother who said she was going to visit Lenin’s tomb, Valerin grows up in state institutions until, at sixteen, he is released to make his own way in the world, and is offered a chance at the Gates of Heaven, through an injection of heroin, by his only friend.
Deborah Ellis’ Lunch with Lenin is a collection of short stories that examine the human cost of illegal drugs and substance abuse through the eyes of teenagers in Russia, Afghanistan, Canada, the US, the Philippines, Mongolia, and Bolivia. Searing and tender and brutally honest, Ellis’ stories are nothing short of wonderful. A must-read for Intermediate students.
FernFolio Editor

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

fernfolio — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:07:50 +0000

What if you suddenly discovered that everything you’d been told about history, geography, science, yourself, was a lie? What if you learned that, in fact, there aren’t seven continents but ten, and that those three extra continents form what remains of the Free Kingdoms, where Oculators battle valiantly against the encroaching forces of evil, protected by the Knights of Crystallia? What if it was revealed to you that librarians control seven tenths of the world, and are doing their evil best to conquer the rest?
On his thirteenth birthday Alcatraz Smedry receives a package from his father containing his promised inheritance. This comes as a surprise to Alcatraz because he’s lived in foster homes for as long as he can remember, and the package is filled with sand. That same day, he manages to set his foster parents’ kitchen on fire, and they conclude, after eight months of trying, that they are not the right family for the accident-prone teen. When his case worker, the unpleasant Ms. Fletcher, shows up to scold him for his destructiveness and warn him that she’s running out of options for him, Alcatraz prepares himself for yet another move, but, when the foster care case worker shows up, he pulls a gun on the kid and tries to kill him. Fortunately, Alcatraz’ destructiveness seems to spread to the man’s gun, and it breaks, allowing the boy to escape right into the arms of a strange old man wearing odd-looking glasses and a tuxedo jacket who claims to be his grandfather. Caught between a killer and a crazy, Alcatraz decides to go with the old man, and ends up involved in a battle to save the Sands of Rashid from the librarians and their leader, the Dark Oculator.
Along with Grandpa Smedry, his cousin Sing, a rather confusing man, named Quentin, and Bastille, an unpleasant young knight charged with protecting his grandfather, Alcatraz infiltrates the city’s Central Library, a building whose innocent-looking exterior hides a massive and labyrinthine series of floors crowded with rooms filled with books and dinosaurs and special glasses. He discovers that the destructiveness that plagues him is actually a powerful Talent, one that he is going to have to learn to accurately use and fast, if he’s going to help his newly-found family prevent the Free Kingdoms from falling to the librarians and becoming part of the Hushlands. He also learns that he is an Oculator, one of the rare people who can use the pairs of glasses specially crafted as tools, and weapons, by both Free Kingdomers and librarians.
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians is a rollicking adventure filled with surprises, one that is sure to captivate the imagination. Just as interesting are Alcatraz’ discoveries about himself, and his frequent asides about literature and the art of writing. To the end, the writer claims that the book is fact, not fiction, but, really, evil librarians plotting to take over the world? Fantasy, and nothing more!
FernFolio Editor

Benny and Omar by Eoin Colfer

fernfolio — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:38:15 +0000

Benny ought to be having the time of his life; he has led his team to victory in the Primary Schools County Hurling Final, and Wexford has finally made it to the All-Ireland Hurling Final, but his father has been transferred to Tunisia with his company, EuroGas. So, instead of playing pickup games with his friends, and angling for tickets to the All-Ireland game, he’s had to pack up his hurling stick and accompany his family to Sfax.
Within days of his arrival in Marhaba village, the gated and guarded enclave built for EuroGas, Benny has hurt the feelings of his younger, artsy brother, George, antagonised his parents, annoyed the guards, frustrated his hippy teachers, Harmony and Bob, and alienated his classmates. Though on some levels he likes the ragtag bunch of foreigners in his class, Benny can’t stop himself from rebuffing their overtures of friendship with his smart-alecky comments and his heavy sarcasm. His years at St. Jerome’s have taught him that “you had to sort out, or be sorted,” and no amount of encouragement or group talks works against this bone-deep training.
Warned off the expensive new soccer field by Mr. Gama, the head of security for Marhaba village, Benny finds himself a spot to practice his hurling shots in an abandoned area littered with construction debris, next to the wall that encircles the compound. A skinny little Tunisian boy shows up on top of the wall and watches him shoot his tennis ball against the wall. When, after a couple of traded insults, the kid flicks his cigarette butt at his head, Benny responds by blasting the tennis ball at him, only to find that the kid has snatched the ball out of the air, and disappeared over the other side of the wall.
Annoyed over the loss of his only ball, Benny bides his time, and keeps his eye out for the kid. He realises that the Tunisian boy must live in the lean-to shack built against the outside of the compound wall. Armed with his hurling stick, he climbs over the wall and sneaks into the shack, where he finds and retrieves his tennis ball. Only he is caught by the Tunisian kid, who roars up on a battered old moped. Benny makes a break for the wall, only to be chased by the kid on the moped, and, in his bid to escape, inadvertently whacks the kid across the forehead with his hurley. Furious, the kid grabs the stick from Benny’s hands, slams it against the wall, and breaks it.
With no prospect of any hurling, either on the field or on TV, Benny’s morale takes a further dip, aided by his accidental spilling of food and drink all down the dress Grace, the only classmate to continue to try to befriend him. Then he finds his hurley, carefully repaired, propped up against the front door of his family’s house, and realises the Tunisian kid has fixed it for him. Driven to pay a return visit to the home of the little Tunisian, he introduces himself to and becomes friends with Omar, an orphan who lives by his wits on the streets of Sfax.
The two boys become fast friends, sharing a certain recklessness and spirit of adventure. Though they don’t speak the same language, Omar, a huge fan of TV, does speak a weird form of television English, and Benny rapidly learns some rudimentary Arabic. Together, the boys play soccer with Omar’s friends, practice hurling, and go for wild spins on Omar’s moped. A timely lie to Benny’s parents has them convinced that Omar is the son of one of the guards, and the boys are soon “Bee Gees,” brothers.
Then one evening an unusually sombre Omar invites Benny to his shack for dinner, and Benny accepts, though he’s supposed to be minding his younger brother, George, while their parents go out with friends. That night, Benny learns Omar’s painful secret, and is caught speeding through Sfax on a moped while his brother is at home alone. Benny is grounded for months, and required to follow a strict schedule of schoolwork and chores. Angry and disappointed, his parents refuse to hear a word about Omar, whom Mr. Gama, the head of security, has labelled a thief and a menace, and order Benny to have nothing further to do with the boy.
But, when Mr. Gama and his men become threats to Omar’s safety, Benny discovers that their friendship is more important than getting allowance or an end to being grounded. He takes off with Omar on a wild and desperate ride to protect the only thing that matters to the Tunisian.
Written by Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, Benny and Omar is a story about friendship and brotherhood, and the bonds that can unite despite differences in culture, religion, language or finances. Written in the words of a kid from County Wexford, it is at times hilariously funny, yet its examination of the struggles of two boys trying to find their way in the world is both loving and lovely. This book is not to be missed.
FernFolio Editor

Loch by Paul Zindal

fernfolio — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 13:21:44 +0000

Fifteen-year old Luke, and his younger sister Zaidee, have spent most of their lives moving around with their marine biologist father, Dr. Sam Perkins. Sam works for the wealthy and controversial Anthony Cavenger, who travels the world in pursuit of mythological creatures – yetis, dragons, sasquatches and sea monsters. This time, Cavenger’s hunt has brought the Perkins to the shores of Lake Alban, near New York’s famous Lake Champlain, where the multimillionaire plans to find irrefutable proof of the water monster whom locales have whispered about for decades.
For Luke and Zaidee, this latest adventure allows them to spend time aboard Cavenger’s search vessel, helping their father and trying to bridge the emotional gaps created by their mother’s recent death from cancer. Once an internationally renowned scientist, Dr. Sam’s job with Cavenger has jeopardised his professional reputation and eaten away at his spirit. Though worried about his father, Luke is happy to renew his friendship with Sarah, and to spend time out on the water with her and his sister Zaidee.
Luke and Zaidee and Sarah are all aboard Cavenger’s boats the day that the search team sweeps Lake Alban for signs of the water monster, and all of them are witness to the horrifying events that take place when Cavenger orders great nets to be lowered into the lake in hopes of cornering and capturing the creature. Once he sees what lurks in the depths of Lake Alban, even the death of one of his crew won’t stop Cavenger’s hunt.
Frightened by what has happened, Dr. Sam orders Luke and Zaidee off the lake but they rapidly get bored of the trailer and their computer games, and decide to sneak in a little fishing from the family bass boat. Then Luke notices some scrape marks near the shore at the far end of Lake Alban, and makes a discovery that will change his and Zaidee’s and, ultimately, Dr. Sam’s lives forever.
Written by famed author Paul Zindal, who also wrote such classics as The Pigman and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Loch is a terrific tale about two young people who discover that distance between fantasy and science, and fear and love, is not nearly as great as you might have imagined.
FernFolio Editor

Scat by Carl Hiaasen

fernfolio — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:12:01 +0000

Dragged on a day-long field trip to the Black Vine swamp in Florida’s everglades by Mrs. Starch, their terror of a science teacher, Nick Waters, his friend Marta Gonzalaz, and the rest of their class from Truman School scramble to record the names of plants and animals knowing full well that they will be tested on their knowledge. But the field trip ends abruptly when a wildfire breaks out and everyone is ordered back to the buses by Mrs. Starch who then disappears into the fire zone.
Though Dr. Dressler, the school’s headmaster, claims that he has received a letter from Mrs. Starch requesting a leave of absence due to a family crisis, Nick is suspicious. He happens to know that Mrs. Starch doesn’t have any family. So Nick decides to nose around and get to the bottom of his teacher’s sudden disappearance, one that is in marked contrast to her usual perfect attendance. Anything is better than sitting around worrying why his soldier father hasn’t sent his daily e-mails from Iraq.
Accompanied by a reluctant Marta, Nick checks out Mrs. Starch’s house, which turns out to be every bit as creepy as students have rumoured, and gets caught inside her house by a strange man named Twilly. Things heat up when the local fire investigator decides that the fire at Black Vine swamp was deliberately set, and police start questioning students in Nick’s class, particularly Duane Smoke Scrod Jr, who happens to be on probation for two previous convictions for arson.
But how does the Red Diamond Energy Corporation pen, found at the scene of the fire tie into the story, and did Marta and Nick actually hear a panther scream in Black Vine swamp just before the fire broke out?
Carl Hiaasen’s Scat is a terrific story about some kids and their teacher who join forces with a mysterious environmentalist to expose the illegal activities of an oil company and save an environmentally threaten animal. Written with humour and passion, this adventure is a sure winner!
FernFolio Editor

Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements

fernfolio — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:56:37 +0000

Peering into the bathroom mirror, one morning after his shower, fifteen year-old Bobby Phillips is shocked by what he sees. Or, rather, by what he doesn’t see, for Bobby has disappeared, become invisible. His parents, both exceptionally intelligent and well-educated university professors, are initially taken aback by their son’s invisibility, but quickly draw up plans to keep him safely out of sight at home while they think about how best to tackle the problem.
Unfortunately, Bobby’s absence from school, and the neighbour’s nosiness brings the State Department of Children and Family Services to the door, and the Phillips find themselves caught between the state and their need to keep Bobby’s invisibility a secret. Fed up with his parents’ failure to listen to him as well as with their persistent habit of talking at and not to him, and ready to climb walls with boredom and worry, Bobby decides to take matters into his own hands.
Bundled up for the winter weather in hat, scarf and dark glasses, he sets off for his favourite place in the world, the university library, locks himself into a cubicle in men’s washroom, strips off his clothes, and then takes a walk through the library, invisible to the many students working there. But, on his way out of the library a couple of hours later, he bumps into a young girl and sends her – and his dark glasses – flying. Frantic, at first, that she will notice his invisible state and raise the alarm, Bobby then realizes that the girl is blind. So begins his friendship with Alicia, whose sudden blindness, two years previously, has left her angry, frustrated, and alone.
Somehow, confiding his secret to Alicia seems right and easy. Since becoming blind, she, too, has become invisible to her old friends from school, to the people she comes across as she navigates her way through the streets, white cane in hand, and to her parents, who see her disability far more clearly than they see her. Together, Bobby and Alicia try to make sense out of what has happened to him, try to examine the evidence, while his father explores scientific theories at the table in the Phillips’ front parlour, and become close friends in the process.
Things Not Seen is a wonderful story about a teenaged boy who has to lose himself before he can see, really see, what’s important.
FernFolio Editor

Payback by James Heneghan

fernfolio — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:02:11 +0000

For thirteen-year old Charley Callaghan, the new school year is proving tough. A recent immigrant from Dublin, he has made one good friend only to see him depart Vancouver for Ontario. Though his father has found employment, he isn’t making much money and has to be away from home several nights a week. And, worst of all, by far, shortly after her arrival in Vancouver, Charley’s mother suddenly died of cancer. Somehow, he can’t get interested in school or in the assignments, which are piling up, and has fallen into the habit of skipping school altogether when his father is away and his little sister, Annie, has been delivered safely to her junior elementary school for the day. Home alone, he takes naps in his mother’s closet, surrounded by her clothes and the smell of her that still lingers on them.
The school bullies, Sid Quinlan, and his nasty sidekick, Rebar, lean on Charley pretty hard in the first weeks of the new year, mocking his Irish accent and making fun of his bright red hair, but Charley knows a little bit about bullies, and stands up to them just enough that they go in search of a new victim.
They find that victim in Benny Mason, whose gentle manner, soft, sweet face and long hair make him an instant target. Before long, Sid and Rebar label Benny a ‘faggot’ and set out to make his life a constant misery. From his observation point as a classmate of the three boys, Charley watches as Benny buckles under the weight of the bullies’ abuse, silently willing the boy to fight back and then mentally shaking his head in disgust when Benny does nothing to stop it. On one or two occasions, Charley thinks about stepping in to take on Sid and Rebar for Benny, then reminds himself that he’s got his own problems.
Then tragedy strikes, and Charley knows that he bears responsibility for doing nothing to help Benny. He sets out to try to balance the scales, and ends up learning a little about himself as well as coming to terms with both his mother’s death and what happened to Benny.
Told in the first person by Charley, Payback is terrific book about bullying and the consequences of doing nothing. As Charley reads in his history text, “In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” Martin Niemoeller
FernFolio Editor

Kissing the Rain by Kevin Brooks

fernfolio — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:12:41 +0000

Constantly picked on, called names and beaten up by Dec Bowker and his gang, fifteen year-old Moo Nelson has retreated into a solitude that is punctuated only by music, food, and his nightly visits to a footbridge over the nearby A12 motorway. From that bridge, Moo watches the vehicles, observes the ebb and flow of traffic, counts red cars and blue cars, and tries to think of nothing, not of his father, who is defrauding welfare and dealing in stolen goods, not of his mother, who solves every problem with food, not of the fact that, at 240 pounds he is the fattest kid around, not of the struggle to get through each day at school. Moo struggles with the Rain, the constant deluge of abuse at the hands of Dec and his mates, and his mind-over-matter attempts to Umbrellarize himself from it. So, brutalized by his experiences, he mentally beats himself up over every issue, and second-guesses every move.
One evening in November, Moo stands on the footbridge and watches as a Range Rover forces a BMW off the road, and an altercation takes place between the driver of the Range Rover and the driver and occupants of the BMW. When the cops arrive, they find a dead body and charge the driver of the Range Rover, one Keith Vine, with murder. When interviewed, Moo proves to be an excellent witness, only he is adamant that Vine could not have killed the victim. The police are determined to make the charge stick since, Moo discovers, Vine is a career criminal with a long history of violent assaults and murder, but the boy knows what he saw, and won’t change his story, not even when threatened by the lead detective on the case, one Detective Inspector Callan.
Moo’s wilfully ignorant mother accepts spending money from Vine’s high-priced lawyer, and the local cop in Vine’s pay arranges for Moo’s protection, while Vine himself pays Moo an unexpected visit, and Callan increases the pressure on the boy. Soon Moo realizes that he is caught between a rock and a hard place, and that, no matter what he says or does, he will never be able to escape the Rain. As the threats escalate, Moo is blinded by the realization that the only solution to his dilemma is Kissing the Rain.
Recounted in the first person by Moo, Kissing the Rain is a dark and gripping story about bullying, isolation and intimidation that is as compelling as it is repellant. Kevin Brooks has created an unforgettable story around an unlikely hero, one that will stay with you.
FernFolio Editor

Sketches by Eric Walters

fernfolio — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:00:30 +0000

Fourteen year-old Dana is a runaway, living on the streets of Toronto. Begging for spare change to buy coffee and a doughnut, and protecting her rapidly dwindling possessions from thieves is a far cry from her comfortable life in the suburbs, but she cannot go home.
Fortunately, Dana is adopted into a street family. Sixteen year-old Ashley has been on the streets since she was twelve and, though she puts on a tough act and grumbles about the added pressures of looking out for an underage runaway, proves herself when things get difficult. At seventeen, Brent shows a sometimes alarming tendency toward drug use, and possesses a level of cynicism and pessimism that hints at the struggles he has known, but is steadfast in his care and protection of the two girls. It is Brent who knows all the squats and finds them somewhere safe to sleep each night. It is Brent who figures out each day how they are going to make some money, either by choosing a subway entrance at which to beg for change or by cleaning windshields at stoplights. Both Brent and Ashley are there to calm her down and get her safely away when Dana is propositioned by a man in a business suit who then accuses her of solicitation when Dana starts making a scene.
Dana learns about the realities of life on the street, the constant discomfort of dirty clothes and hair, of hunger and of fatigue. She discovers that street people such as she are invisible, and that most passers-by either become hostile when asked for money or give out of the selfish desire to make the unpleasantness go away.
Dana’s only escape from the tediousness and fear of street life is making art. When she is caught spray painting underneath an overpass by a worker from a local centre for street youth, she is invited to drop in. At Sketches, Dana finds art, industrial arts and computer design studios, and friendship in the form of the centre’s director, Nicki, and a former street youth and now up-and-coming artist, Becca, who volunteers at the centre.
Though Brent and Ashley are initially sceptical about Dana’s increasing involvement in Sketches and its programs, they quickly recognize the potential of making sidewalk chalk pictures, after Nicki and Becca teach Dana and others how to create them. Soon the three young people are earning some decent money through the donations of admiring passers-by, and are thinking that, just possibly, they can make it off the street.
This is a good story about street youth and the hardships of life on the street. It explores some of the compelling reasons that push young men and women to leave home, and as well as the difficulties they face in making it off the street and into homes and jobs. Perhaps our politicians ought to be reading this. Sketches is the Intermediate Book Club’s choice for its second book of the year. I know there will be plenty of discussion about social justice.
FernFolio Editor

Where Soldiers Lie by John Wilson

fernfolio — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 01:18:30 +0000

For sixteen year-old Jack O’Hara, a new life in India is both an exotic and fascinating departure from his previous life in the wilderness of Canada West and a return to where his Irish father and Indian mother met and married, and where he was born. With his parents both dead of smallpox, Jack comes to city Cawnpore to live with his aunt and uncle, and tries to adapt to the rigid and narrow confines of the British colonial society that frowns upon his rather easy Canadian ways and who whispers behind its hands about the dark skin that identifies him as ‘half-caste’.
Despite his frustrations with his very proper aunt Katherine and her blustering English husband, Jack finds that he has come to love India, and eagerly seeks out his friend Hari, the stable boy, to learn Hindi and begin to unravel the intricacies of Indian politics, history and culture, especially its caste system.
When Jack happens to mention to Hari, one morning in May of 1857, that someone has forgotten a stack of chapattis on the porch of his aunt and uncle’s bungalow, the stable boy’s becomes very concerned and eventually admits to his friend that he fears that trouble is coming. Within days, there are reports of uprisings among the native troops, and Jack and his aunt and uncle are ordered to move into the nearby barracks. Crowded into two long buildings surrounded by a hastily-dug trench, some one thousand men, women and children try to survive cramped conditions, blinding heat, and scarce food and water as Wheeler’s Entrenchment, as the compound comes to be called, comes under siege by native Indian soldiers determined to free their country of ‘feringhees’.
As the siege continues, Jack, his soldier friend, Tommy, and Alice, the General’s half-caste daughter, work valiantly under an almost constant barrage of cannon and gunfire to defend the entrenchment, help the sick and wounded, and dispose of the dead. As food dwindles and the dead toll mounts, they begin to despair of rescue by British forces and start to fear that no one will survive at Cawnpore.
Where Soldiers Lie is a moving account of what happened at Cawnpore in 1857, during the Indian Mutiny. Jack learns that, in terrible times, the weak can find the strength and courage to perform acts of great heroism while the strong can simply give up and die. He also learns that, in the midst of unspeakable violence and atrocities, ordinary people can act with extraordinary generosity of spirit. Once again, John Wilson has vividly brought to life a moment of our collective past. We are the richer for it.
FernFolio Editor