 |
Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
|
|||||||
 |
Key, Watt.
FOURMILE New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2012 IL 5-8, RL 3.9 ISBN 0374350957 |
|
|
Foster loved his life on the farm his parents bought in Alabama. But now, a year after his father passed away, Foster and his mother are struggling to take care of the farm themselves. They had to sell all the cattle for money, the barn is leaking, the fence needs painting, and they don’t have the money or knowledge to fix any of it. On top of all that, Foster’s mom has a new boyfriend named Dax who is abusive and ill tempered. He drinks too much and is rude to Foster and his mom. He’s even threatened to kill Foster’s dog! Foster hates him, but his mother doesn’t seem to care that he’s such a bad guy. Everything is falling apart, until a mysterious stranger named Gary wanders into their lives.It starts with Gary needing shelter from the rain for one night, but after he proves how helpful he can be around the farm, Gary and Foster’s mom make a deal that he can rent out the barn in exchange for fixing the place up to sell. Gary provides more than just physical labor for the family, he provides kindness and support that Foster and his mother are not getting from anyone else. When Dax starts to feel threatened by their bond with Gary, he stops at nothing to eliminate Gary from their lives. The feud between the two men escalates through a series of intense events leading up to a powerful climax. Readers beware; you will learn to hate Dax as much as Foster hates him. (South Carolina Junior Book Award nominee 2015, Prepared by: Andrea Knight, Glenview Middle School, andreaknight@anderson5.net) |
| SUBJECTS: Loss (Psychology) --
Fiction. Violence -- Fiction. Farm life -- Alabama -- Fiction. Alabama -- Fiction. |
Except
where otherwise noted, content on this site is 