Freedom Flight

September 1, 2015

Gr 6 Up-This series broaches the complex subject of teens with parents and guardians in the armed forces. Rising basketball star Tyshawn is excited to have his sergeant father home in Collateral Damage, but he was not prepared for his father's severe injury. Suddenly he has a host of new responsibilities in addition to his busy life as a teenager. Paige also has to adjust to her parent's trauma in Freedom Flight, when she quickly realized her mom has returned from service addicted to pain medication. In Combat Zone, Justin is determined to be a Navy SEAL like his father, until his role model betrays him with a secret. His aggression spins out of control, eventually threatening his lifelong dream. Always Faithful's Rosie also finds her life and anger spinning out of control when her former Marine Corps father announces he is reenlisting. These short novels clock in under 120 pages, but higher-level language and mature concepts make them a good fit for late middle grade and high school readers.

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2015
High school sophomore Paige's mother, a captain in the military, has just come home from Afghanistan, seemingly a welcome event. Sadly, her mother, injured in an attack two years before, comes home addicted to pain medications and tranquilizers. She's devolved into a hardened and angry woman who buries her unhappiness in a drug-induced stupor every night. Paige, dealing with friends' relationships and her own only slightly depicted romance with David, a fellow ROTC member, is uncertain how to cope with both her mother's unexplained but venomous hostility toward her and the addiction. The Support and Defend series seems to be intended as potential bibliotherapy for the teen offspring of damaged veterans. However, the novel is brief, perhaps to enhance its appeal for reluctant readers, which leaves little room for character or plot development. Only Paige is marginally rounded; others do little more than slide in and out of the message-focused narrative. Dialogue, too, is trite. Paige's mom, finally recognizing her need for treatment, comments: "I fought for freedom for others....I need to fight now for my own." After being sent to rehab, she mentions that there are many soldiers like her and adds, "We've got each other and our treatment team." Although little recent fiction deals with children of damaged veterans, there are numerous outstanding works about addicted parents that would resonate more with readers than this weak title. (Fiction. 11-16)

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November 1, 2015
Grades 7-11 Fifteen-year-old Paige Harkins is excited that her mom is coming home from Afghanistan. She and the other Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFJROTC) cadets await the flight that Paige has begun to call her mother's Freedom Flight, but the person Paige encounters isn't the person she is expecting. Her mother has brought along extra baggage: an addiction to pain pills. Although Paige and her close friends in AFJROTC have each lost one or both parents to war and depend on one another for support, Paige can't share her mother's problem. If air force superiors learn of it, her mother could lose her job. Stress engulfs Paige, but ultimately she finds the courage to confront her mother about her dad's death and other secrets she might be harboring. This high/low, fast-paced read about military life is part of the Support and Defend series and will be popular with many YA readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)