Great Reading: Bookmark It!

Volume 31, Number 3, February 2004

Tough Guys

Ruth Cox

Acceleration. Graham McNamee.
Random House, 2003. $15.95. 0-385-73119-1. Grades 8-12. While working in Toronto Transit System’s lost and found, 17-year-old Duncan finds a serial killer’s journal and, with the help of his two best friends, tries to find the killer before he strikes again.

Lucas. Kevin Brooks.
Scholastic, 2003. $16.95. 0-439-45698-3. Grades 8-12. Fifteen-year-old Caitlin, disgusted by the behavior of her brother and his rowdy friends, is drawn to Lucas, the quiet blond-haired boy who shows up on their remote British island. The locals don’t understand Lucas and accuse him of a violent crime he did not commit.

Out of order. A. M. Jenkins.
HarperCollins, 2003. $15.99. 0-06623968-0. Grades 8-12. Cocky baseball player Colt Trammel, at the top of the social pecking order in school, spends his sophomore year trying to keep his girlfriend and figuring out his new green-haired female lab partner.

Shattering glass. Gail Giles.
Roaring Brook, 2002. $15.95. 0-76-131581-0. Grades 8-12. Young Steward and his buddies are passive accomplices as the new kid in school, Rob Haynes, turns geeky Simon Glass into one of the most popular kids in school, but the results are deadly.

Warrior angel. Robert Lipsyte.
HarperCollins, 2003. $16.89. 0-06-000497-5. Grades 8-12. Sonny Bear, the Native American boxer from The contender, is back to defend his heavyweight championship title but doesn’t have the spirit for it. Starkey, a mentally ill teen who is obsessed with Sonny, helps the boxer focus.

Ruth Cox is assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of Houston-Clear Lake in Houston, Texas. She can be reached at Cox@cl.uh.edu.