Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown (170 pages)
This novel, told in poetic form, gives the reader a glimpse into the life of a young girl, Rachel, whose mother has abandoned her family. The novel begins with the mother packing up her car and leaving for an unknown destination, and Rachel blaming herself and her father. What Rachel doesn’t understand is that her mother is ill with bipolar disorder, which means she has serious depression one minute and then major happiness the next. Rachel definitely struggles as she tries to cope with her mother’s abandonment - she stops doing her homework, hides her mom’s whereabouts from her best friend, and is angry with her father all the time. The simple poetry makes this tough subject matter an easier one to grasp and it is written with younger teens in mind.
Miss Simer’s Rating: ***
Teens Omar and Becky have been best friends since early in their childhoods. They’re outcasts in their school and have been tortured by school bully, Kyle, for years. When a new student, Akhil, arrives and is different from any other student they’ve ever encountered, Becky and Omar befriend him. Akhil has strange scars up and down his arms, he refuses to sit in the chairs in the classroom, talks back to his teachers, and is the first boy to give Becky a flirtatious flutter. But, Kyle sees Akhil as fresh meat and his impending plan puts not only Akhil in danger, but everyone at the school that he has on his hit list. With an interesting approach to school violence by comparing it with a wolf pack, this novel will make the reader wonder about how far bullies will go and what students can do to stop them before it’s too late.