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Booktalk
#1
There is Evil in the world,
true Evil. And there is Truth in the world, real Truth. But how can you
know that if you don't believe in a Higher Power? That's where we come
in. We are the teenage agents of the Veritas Project, working daily with
our parents to find The Truth. (Really, parents aren't that bad. Give yours
another chance. Be worthy of their trust, and they might just trust you.)
The Veritas Project is funded
by a private organization, chartered by a US President who understands
that everything cannot be solved through the separation of Church and State.
We go where the authorities dare not go, and we see the faithful connections
they refuse to see.
On this case, we're trying
to find a couple of runaways. One of them turns up in the middle of nowhere,
out of his mind. We must find the others before it is too late! Teens like
us, trying to figure out who they are and where they belong in the world.
Trying to grow up a little too fast. Our search leads us to the streets,
and to a secret government project where truth no longer exists. A place
where kidnapped teens are brainwashed and mentally tortured. These teens
are being used as guinea pigs, to be painfully convinced that there is
no such thing as right or wrong.
If there is no Truth, if there
is no ultimate right or wrong, how will humanity survive? How will we treat
each other along the way? If there are no consequences, if you were completely
free of responsibility, what kind of person would you choose to be?
Watch your back. Don't walk
down dark alleys alone. Don't trust strangers. They might get you next.
Pray we reach you in time.
Mary McCarthy for The
Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award
Booktalk #1
His mind told him, insisted
that he was running, putting one tattered, bleeding foot in front of the
other, even though the ground did not move under his feet, turned when
he did not, or inclined steeply upward though he saw no slope before him.
He closed his eyes, but he could still see. He screamed but he heard nothing.
The pathway became a precipice and he tumbled headlong, falling through
space. He was under water, he tried to swim, and suddenly his arms were
pulling him forward through the hot dry sand. The sky above was red like
a sunset, the earth below, an eye buzzing purple, then green, then gray,
and then red as the sky turned green. Where he was, or why, or when or
who, he could not know, could never know. There were no days no hours,
no moments, no way of knowing, and no chance of knowing how long he had
been here. Been where?
No place at any particular
time. One he had been a 15-year-old boy, cocky and wayward. He had a brother,
a father, a sister, and a mother. He had a name, a school, a life, and
he thought he knew something. But that boy, that time, and that life had
become nothing. Non-things. There was no boy here, no knowledge, no thought,
no reason. There was nothing here but terror, endlessly repeating cycles
of terror, layer upon layer with more, more, more to come, in swirling
kaleidoscoping sounds, images, and sensations, pulsing, pounding surging
throbbing. He fell. He actually hit the ground. Without another thought
he was on his feet and running away. He just ran.
Nightmare Academy. You had
better watch your back. Don't walk down dark alleys alone. Don't trust
strangers. They might get you next. Pray that someone, somewhere will reach
you in time.
Marilyn Bunker for The
Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award |
