A Plague Year

August 22, 2011
Bloor (London Calling) revisits his days teaching high school English to find parallels between Daniel Defoe’s classic about the bubonic plague in 17th-century London and a (real) methamphetamine epidemic in Pennsylvania. In a crackerjack opening, readers meet ninth-grader Tom Coleman outside his father’s grocery store when he prevents the robbery of an ATM. Robberies—especially of cleaning supplies and Sudafed—have escalated as Blackwater, a coal-mining town, succumbs to addiction. At school, Tom and his sister, Lilly, attend drug counseling after she gets caught smoking pot. In these sessions, they reconnect with Arthur, a cousin whose family has already suffered the fallout of drug abuse. Bloor’s villains—a psychiatrist who specializes in rehab, but is a user himself, and a craven football coach—are cartoonish, but characters closer to Tom have more dimension, especially the Food Giant staff: Tom’s father, assistant manager Uno, and Bobby, who has Down syndrome. The plot is message-heavy but goes down easily because Bloor excels at writing vivid scenes. Tom is a thoroughly sympathetic narrator as he grows to realize there is value in “blooming where you are planted.” Ages 12–up.

September 1, 2011

Freshman Tom Coleman studies for the PSAT, works for free at the Food Giant his dad runs and plays Nintendo in this rural Pennsylvania town in the fall of 2001, when terrorists and methamphetamine suddenly become big threats.

Bloor (Taken, 2007, etc.) opens with an attempted robbery, allowing Tom to show off his quick thinking. It is the first symptom Tom notices of the coming "plague." Tom will need more than academic smarts and a hearty work ethic as the town collectively succumbs to meth addiction. Key is a group counseling session about drugs and addiction led by a therapist from outside the community. Both this sophisticated therapist and her good-looking daughter hold an exotic, outsider appeal for Tom. Tom's family has struggled with addiction in the past, providing a layer of poignancy. As the town goes from a vague awareness of drugs to being overrun by zombie addicts, Tom and the town are challenged to respond. In other hands, the nearby downing of Flight 93 could overshadow the plague, but Bloor's insight into ordinary people provides a great prism through which to view the events. The language is not particularly elegant (some dialogue is realistically crude), but it carries the big ideas sturdily and with affection for the community and its people.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2011

Gr 8 Up-Set between September 2001, when Flight 93 crashed outside Somerset, PA, and July 2002, when the Quecreek Mine disaster and rescue took place, this novel follows Tom Coleman, a high school freshman who is watching his impoverished town of Blackwater and its residents fall apart. It has become home to methamphetamine addicts, crime at the supermarket where he works is rising, and the people around him are getting arrested or dying. Realizing that the only folks who will help their community are the members themselves, Tom and other students in the school's drug counseling group decide to take action. Bloor draws comparisons to the movie Night of the Living Dead and Daniel Defoe's A Journal of a Plague Year to show how crystal meth and the cycle of poverty, alcohol, and drug abuse can decimate an area just like zombies or a plague. He does an excellent job of creating this downtrodden locale and the people who live there. While the disastrous effect of drugs is the main plot, Tom's growth from a coward to someone who sticks up for himself and his town is equally compelling.-Erik Carlson, White Plains Public Library, NY

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.