The Darkest Path

caskoc - Are you looking for a great book. If you are then read this one. It's called The Darkest Path by This book is about a teenager named cal. Cal's family was captured when he was in fifth grade by the path. There is a war in the U.S between the Glorious Path and the U.S Federal army. After six years of working for the path cal found a dog and with is brother they escaped and tried to go back home to New York. But Cal's brother James was didn't want to go home so he went back to a path camp. So after a long journey cal and the dog bear reached the border. When a sentry saw him he cuffed them but then a group of kids knocked out the sentry and brought him to the fed side of the border. Where one of the kids father threw cal in jail for working with the path. After that there was a bombing raid and cal and everybody evacuated the town.and James finally went home after weeks of traveling through towns to get back to New York.

October 14, 2013
Hirsch returns to the post-apocalyptic well of his first two books, The Eleventh Plague and Magisterium, in this bleak and somewhat familiar novel. The archetype at play is a military-religious one: a man named Nathan Hill has founded his own church and taken over several southern and western states. The former U.S. has been mired in a civil war ever since, and Callum Roe and his brother, James, were two early converts to the cause, captured when they were kids and forced into service. After bonding with a stray dog, Cal kills a superior officer to save the dog's life and becomes a fugitive. His journey out of occupied Utah and attempts to subvert the cause he once fought for intermix with his meeting an attractive girl named Nat and joining the U.S. forces. The novel hits its stride during well-choreographed action sequences and in occasional scenes featuring Hill, a demagogue who rarely comes across as the evil force he embodies, showing empathy when talking to Callum even as he perpetrates horrific acts of war and terror. Ages 12âup. Agent: Sara Crowe: Harvey Klinger.

September 1, 2013
Fifteen-year-old Callum Roe is caught up in the second American Civil War. It's 2026, and the United States is once again fragmented. Federal forces are at war with the Army of the Glorious Path, which includes most of the former Confederacy plus additional states, including the southwest, Alaska and Washington. The Path--a militant and religiously fundamentalist organization--in which women are robed and veiled "companions" ministering to the men--is dedicated to being "a light in the darkness and the rod that falls upon the backs of the defiant." Cal, captured by the Path six years previously, is set to move up from novice to citizen when Capt. Monroe reneges on a deal, and Cal instead becomes Pvt. Callum Roe in the army. When he kills a man to protect a dog, he becomes a runner, off the Path, intending to journey across the war-torn country from Arizona to his former home in New York. Cal's first-person point of view offers the immediacy of his personal experience in this action-packed drama, but unfortunately, it isn't up to offering the fuller social and political history of the war that many readers would find interesting. An intriguing vision of a possible future rooted in current politics and wrapped in an exciting tale of war. (maps) (Fiction. 12-18)

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2013

Gr 7 Up-Callum Roe, 15, and his younger brother, James, were whisked away from their parents in Ithaca, New York, six years ago, by followers of the Glorious Path. More than a religious sect, armies of Path believers have systematically taken over large portions of the United States. Citizens offered "the Choice" of joining are given jobs or trained as soldiers for the cause, and those who refuse often disappear without a trace. James is content with his Path life working as an officer's valet in Arizona, but Cal is considered rebellious and relegated to cleaning out dog kennels. Challenged when trying to save a stray dog named Bear from certain maltreatment, he kills the kennel boss and goes on the lam with Bear. Intending to journey back to New York, Cal heads north to evade capture and encounters a full-fledged war between the Path and the Feds, encountering roadblocks, air assaults, and soldiers at every turn. In Wyoming, Cal meets Natalie and other teens resisting the Path, and they are nearly killed in a skirmish. Nat's father is a casualty and, while they convalesce in a rich kid's hideaway, Cal sees Nat's transformation from a mere rebel to a martyr willing to die to avenge her father's death. Her plan results in a page-turning climax fraught with danger and emotion. The dystopian story is action-packed all the way.-Vicki Reutter, State University of New York at Cortland

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2013
Grades 7-10 Teen warriors populate a great deal of young-adult fiction. Coming up with a fresh take on these protagonists, especially in the dystopian genre, is not an easy feat, but in Callum Roe, Hirsch has created a hero who stands out. First there's his loyalty to the mutt he rescueshe literally kills for the dog. Then there's his ability to walk away from his younger brother when it becomes clear the boy has been swallowed up by the fanaticism of the Glorious Path, a military-religious cult that holds half of America under its sway. The brothers were kidnapped by the Path years before, and Cal never gave up on the idea of returning to their true home in Ithaca, New York. Forced to run, Cal treks with his dog through the desert Southwest, seeking to cross into Federal territory. His encounters with those who help or hinder him always surprise. Only at the end of his journey, in a series of convenient plot twists, does the novel falter. Still, recommend this to thrill-seeking, adventure-loving readers. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Hirsch hit it big with The Eleventh Plague (2011) and subsequently got a big publisher push for Magisterium (2012). Expect similar national advertising this time around, too.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)