The Inside Battle

March 1, 2020

Gr 5-8-Nathan Mercer has returned from a fifth combat tour with the marines, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and struggling to readjust to life with his son, 13-year-old Rebel, and Aunt Birdie. Both Rebel and Birdie recognize Nathan's volatile behavior, but neither realizes that he has been radicalized by white supremacist groups online. Rebel has trouble regulating his own stress and anger. When the teen commits a racist act that gets him expelled from school, Nathan takes them both to Oklahoma to join a white nationalist militia. Through Rebel's first-person narration, Sumrow examines the boy's anxiety-about his father's well-being, his fear of guns, the nerdiness that his father detests-and how those issues contribute to Rebel's troubled complicity in Nathan's extremism. The limited perspective allows glimpses into the radicalization process without delving too deeply into the group's violent psychology, a mostly successful balance for middle grade readers. Slipping away from militia training, Rebel discovers some unlikely neighbors for the isolated extremist camp: Calliope, an adolescent beekeeper, and her grandfather Josiah, the pastor at an African American church. Sumrow falls into some tired tropes with these black characters; they are kindly, wise, and unfailingly forgiving, and they appear primarily to assist Rebel's evolution away from the domestic terrorists his father has joined. Simplistic plotting in the second half of the book may frustrate some readers, but the narrative's climax acknowledges the damaging effects of white nationalist ideology. VERDICT Amid missteps, Sumrow illustrates the threat of white supremacy and the lamentable treatment of veterans with PTSD.-Robbin E. Friedman, Chappaqua Library, NY

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2019
Grades 6-8 Powerful in its impact while remaining true to its middle-grade audience, Sumrow's latest is unafraid to fully explore how hate, misplaced anger, and racism can affect the relationship between a boy and his father. Rebel attempts to navigate his father's mercurial moods, caused by untreated PTSD after returning home from a stint in the military, through avoidance and focusing on robotics. After a tough loss to his best friend Ajeet during a competition, Rebel turns his resentment outward and commits an appalling, hateful act of vandalism. In response, Rebel's father takes him to a training camp for a racist paramilitary group. While the group plans acts of violence against minorities and the government, Rebel tries to decide if saving his father?and siding with the extremists?is worth the loss of his friendships and convictions. A somewhat too-convenient twist moves the story toward a conclusion free of explicit violence that does not downplay the consequences of each character's actions. The author's note also provides important conversation starters about bigotry, PTSD, and using one's voice as a tool for justice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)