It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

{Celebrating the books we’ve read in the past week

&

the titles we are currently reading.}

Description from IndieBound:

Told in letters, poems, text messages, news stories, and comics–a series of documents Nora collects for the Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule Project–Breakout is a thrilling story that will leave readers thinking about who’s really welcome in the places we call home.

Nora Tucker is looking forward to summer vacation in Wolf Creek–two months of swimming, popsicles, and brushing up on her journalism skills for the school paper. But when two inmates break out of the town’s maximum security prison, everything changes. Doors are locked, helicopters fly over the woods, and police patrol the school grounds. Worst of all, everyone is on edge, and fear brings out the worst in some people Nora has known her whole life. Even if the inmates are caught, she worries that home might never feel the same.

Thoughts:

I remember when the REAL breakout happened in Upstate NY a few years ago. It was all over the news and people were glued to their TVs and Twitter for updates about the manhunt for the escaped fugitives.

I remember seeing Messner post on Instagram a few times about how she had hit a roadblock on the way to get groceries or people in her neighborhood were asked to stay inside. Even back then, I thought, She’s totally going to use this idea in a book. And here it is.

I like the extra story in here about the new girl in town—an African American girl who moved from New York City. Nora notices that she isn’t treated fairly and wrestles with her surprise: Is she really seeing what she thinks she is? Should she say something? Tough questions.

Here are some other books by Messner. I particularly recommend The Seventh Wish and All the Answers.