The Snowball Effect

March 1, 2011

Gr 6 Up-A tightly packed tale about the effects of peer pressure. Dylan likes hanging out with the guys, but he isn't always comfortable with Garrett's ideas. When Garrett suggests that they throw snowballs at passing cars, he reluctantly goes along. Then his friend decides to up the ante and packs rocks in the snowballs. Dylan chickens out but Garrett's snowball cracks the windshield of a passing car, causing an accident. When the rest of the guys run off, Dylan is torn between fleeing the scene and checking on the driver. He fabricates a story that allows him to be at the crash site but not involved in the accident. One lie escalates to another as he is hailed as a hero for aiding the crash victim. But Garrett's threats to tell the truth, along with Dylan's own guilt, make him feel sick. He eventually comes clean to a reporter who prints the corrected story, and the community backlash only makes the teen feel worse. It's not until he takes ownership of his responsibility in the accident, makes amends with the victim, and confronts Garrett that Dylan reverses "the snowball effect." Loughead creates a very realistic teen dilemma. Though the dialogue feels artificial at times, reluctant readers will keep plowing through simply to see if Dylan can undo all the damage he has caused.-H. H. Henderson, Heritage Middle School, Deltona, FL

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2010
Grades 4-7 Like so many books in the Orca Currents series, a tough moral dilemma is swiftly presented and then painfully played out: 15-year-old Dylan is pitching snow bombs (snowballs with rocks in the center) at passing cars with his friends when one of their targets loses control and crashes. While the rest of the gang flees, Dylan checks on the driver and discovers that she is the mother of a classmate. She is injured but thinks Dylan is a hero, an opinion the rest of the town is happy to embrace. Soon Dylans being treated like a kingand being eaten up inside by guilt. Loughead is especially good at depicting Dylans physical turmoil, with constant mentions of his feelings of nausea. The snowball metaphorhow a single lie grows increasingly largeis also well handled. Loughead leans to the comforting side of things at her own peril: the retaliatory threat of the other boys present at the accident never materializes, and the parent characters are uniformly wonderful. Reluctant readers, though, will appreciate this intelligent drama.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)