Unchained

January 1, 2012
In an unnamed city, the son of drug-addicted parents finds a loving foster home, then loses everything. Part of the publisher's Gravel Road line, which produces a junior version of "urban street lit" aimed at reluctant readers, the book is attractively packaged with a photographic cover, a small trim and plenty of white space on its pages. Sentences are short and vocabulary simple, but narrator TJ's voice is expressive, even though some complexity is sacrificed to move the story forward. TJ's ambivalence toward his family is clear from the first evocative scene, in which a fight between 5-year-old TJ and his father ends in laughter. His relationship to the Hillside Vipers, a gang that recruits TJ when he is 13, also rings true: TJ joins the gang because he is afraid not to. The emotional center of the book is Miss Dixie, the boundlessly warm proprietor of a group home where TJ lives after the state separates him from his family. Although the redemptive relationships TJ builds at Miss Dixie's are compelling, Miss Dixie's promise that TJ "will always have a place here" seems hard to believe, given how many young people need foster care. Despite a few oversimplifications, this is a thoughtful and accessible story about the many meanings--positive and negative--of family. (Fiction. 12-15)

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March 1, 2012

Gr 7 Up-Ever since he was a little boy, TJ knew that he had to act out to get his parents' attention. Now, as a teenager, he starts skipping school to hang out with the Hillside Vipers. Then, after his father dies of a drug overdose, TJ is taken away from his mother and sent to a foster home. Miss Dixie is extremely caring, and, after a short period of struggle, TJ becomes close to his foster siblings and adjusts to his new school. After two years pass, his mother is clean, so he must leave Miss Dixie's home and return to his side of town to finish high school. In doing so, TJ is back on the Vipers' radar and forced to act like an aspiring member of the gang. Eventually, he realizes that his life is in his own hands and that his choices are his and his alone. Readers will be pleased to see TJ return to Miss Dixie's and move on with his life in a positive way. This novel delivers a strong message without being preachy. Although the ending may seem a bit sugarcoated, it is uplifting and motivating. A good, positive choice for hi/lo readers.-Lindsay Klemas, JM Rapport School for Career Development, Bronx, NY

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.