About the Author

Francine Prose is the author of twenty-two works of fiction including the highly acclaimed The Vixen; Mister Monkey; the New York Times bestseller Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her works of nonfiction include the highly praised Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer, which has become a classic. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a Director's Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College.

Reviews

Gr 6-10-A school-shooting incident in nearby Pleasant Valley causes Tom's high school administrators to be worried about a ripple effect. A crisis counselor is hired and a watchdog atmosphere grows as the teens' privileges rapidly disappear. Tom and his sophomore classmates are annoyed but not overly concerned about the new security restrictions until they notice eerie disappearances of friends who fail to conform, including Tom's two best friends. The random drug tests, backpack searches, parental e-mail, and dress codes soon expand into mind-controlling daily assemblies, book censorship, and camps for "behavior" problems. After a tip from a Pleasant Valley basketball player, Tom is convinced that students everywhere are being sent away and hopes his father hasn't also been brainwashed via the e-mails from the school authorities. The pace picks up as Tom and friend Becca are caught trying to alert their fellow students to the menacing counselor and know that their lives are at risk. There is suspense in the threat, though readers never learn what has happened to those who disappeared, except for one student who "died." A prosaic style and simple dialogue provide reluctant readers with an opportunity to enjoy a lengthy, frightening story. More mature readers interested in school-violence stories might prefer Joyce Carol Oates's Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (HarperCollins, 2002).-Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

This novel set in the near future offers a chilling examination of controlling forces undermining individual rights. After a shooting takes place at Pleasant Valley, a Massachusetts high school, it seems reasonable that extra security precautions should be implemented at neighboring Central High. However, Tom Bishop and his "Smart Jock" friends grow uneasy as Central High's rules (and punishments for breaking them) become more and more extreme. Tom reluctantly cooperates with the stricter dress code (which, for example, prohibits students from wearing anything red). He also puts up with routine backpack checks, random locker searches and periodic urine tests in order to avoid getting suspended, or worse, being sent to Operation Turnaround, where "kids check in, and they don't check out." The sinister clinical psychologist Dr. Willner, who has usurped their beloved principal, finally pushes the narrator beyond his tolerance limit when he asks Tom to throw a game against Pleasant Valley to raise the spirits of its grieving students. No matter what action Tom takes, he realizes that he has much to lose-and discovers that other classmates have faced fatal consequences. In her first novel for young adults, Prose succeeds in keeping suspense high and manages, for the most part, to connect shocking events to a reality familiar to most teens. Her introduction of a science-fiction thread seems chillingly plausible (Dr. Willard uses e-mails to brainwash the teens' parents). This drama raises all-too-relevant questions about the fine line between safety as a means of protection versus encroachment on individual rights and free will. Sure to spur heated discussions. Ages 10-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.