A Troublesome Boy

August 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-It's 1959, and 14-year-old Teddy Clemson has been shipped to St. Ignatius Academy for Boys upon his mother's boyfriend's insistence. His former school has labeled him a "troublesome boy," and he could care less. However, St. Iggy's is not the type of boarding school most parents would select for their sons. The priests lock students in dark, dungeonlike time-out rooms and are physically abusive. While Teddy gets on with most of the other boys, he is closest with Tim Cooper, a smart-mouthed teen who has little regard for the authority of the priests. They bond with Rozey, the school's janitor/maintenance man, with whom they smoke in the basement and go on outings with during the weekend. Teddy is dealing with the apparent abandonment of both of his parents while Tom is dealing with the fact that no one has ever loved him or showed him affection. To complicate matters, Father Prince takes a sexual interest in Tom. As the school year progresses and the priest's nightly visits continue, Tom distances himself from the other boys and eventually commits suicide. Vasey tackles serious subject matter with strong language and concise, intense writing.-Adrienne L. Strock, Maricopa County Library District, AZ

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2012
Grades 9-12 Proclaimed a failure and a troublesome boy by his school, 14-year-old Teddy is unceremoniously shipped off to St. Ignatius Academy, which is essentially a Catholic reform school. There he meets another troublesome boy named Cooper, and the two become friends and companions in adversity. For make no mistake, adversity is a way of life at St. Ignatius, where each day is a nightmare of physical and sexual abuse. And there is seemingly nothing the beleaguered boys can do about it except to find some measure of friendship and warmth in the school's only noncleric, the janitor Rozey. Though set in 1959, the story has a ripped-from-the-headlines atmosphere and may, indeed, have been inspired by the spate of sex scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church of late. In this well-written and compelling bookwhich is reminiscent of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War (1974)the author offers no easy answers to the problems he poses, leaving ample room for discussion and debate.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)