Mousetraps » (New Edition)

Pat Schmatz has supported her writing habit with a variety of jobs, including forklift operator, janitor, fitness consultant, stable hand, secretary, and shipping clerk. She is a 2003 recipient of a fellowship grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Her first YA novel, Circle the Truth, was published in Fall 2007. She lives in Amherst Junction, Wisconsin.

Back in grade school, Maxie and Rick were best friends. Rick would design crazy inventions, and Maxie, the artistic one, would draw them. Then something terrible happened to Rick, and he vanished from her school and her life. Years later, he shows up at Maxie's high school. In some ways he's the same person she once knew. But in other ways—frightening ones—he's very, very different . . .

Children's Literature

Maxie Hawke was once best friends with Roderick Nash, back when he was Roddy, the target of school bullies. Her artistic skills brought his clever inventions to life, and his specialty was mousetraps. But in middle school, Roddy was brutally attacked in the boys' locker room and disappeared from Maxie's life . . . until Rick shows up in her eleventh grade chemistry class. Suddenly Maxie is dealing with old feelings of guilt, and the pull of the past prevents her from navigating the maze of the very complicated present. Though the primary theme of the book is supposed to be bullying, author Pat Schmatz attempts to include most of the major issues of modern young adult literature: drug use, truancy, homosexuality, homophobia, school violence, domestic violence, friendship, romance, racism, biracial kids, adoption, and middle class privilege. Unfortunately, this weighs down the story and interrupts the narrative flow to the extent that subplots take on more importance and interest than the primary story of Maxie and Rick. Bill Hauser's cartoon drawings show how Maxie deals with life through her art, revealing her immaturity and general naivete about life. The book nears its conclusion before she finally becomes aware of her insular worldview, and she still ends up making choices more believable of a fourteen-year-old than a seventeen-year-old. While this book may be noted for its positive treatment of homosexuality, its uneven pacing and failure to successfully address bullying and school violence overshadow its moments of creative spark. Reviewer: Keri Collins Lewis