The Hemingway Tradition »

After his father commits suicide, Shaw struggles to come to terms with the death and move on.

Lucy Schall - VOYA

This is a multi-book review. These three pattern novels, restricted by length, employ interesting but underdeveloped plots and characters. Separated from his father and in new territory with a strong, single mother, a young man in each story meets an attractive girl, receives support from a stable older man, succeeds in an intercultural experience, and makes independent choices with positive results in relation to his father's character. The stories by Butcher and Fitch employ shock openings a gory suicide, purple condoms but authentic teen voices do not have the time to develop the characters' confrontations with complex problems. In The Hemingway Tradition, Butcher's protagonist fears that he is gay, as is his father, a talented writer and athlete. After a racial incident, Shaw writes in an editorial for the school paper, "P is for People-not Prejudice." He wins praise from peers and adults and accepts his father's homosexuality and perhaps his own. The reader, never seeing the article, is unable to judge Shaw's realization. In One More Step, Fitch's character deals with his dysfunctional biological parents and his "steps". Mom marries her third serious boyfriend. Dad has a new family and a drinking problem. With two brief and mild rebellions, the protagonist adjusts even though his grandfather, his stable father figure, dies unexpectedly. In Refuge Cove, Gregg rescues and hides boat refugees. The fearful family, because of an infatuation between Gregg and their daughter, trusts him. Immigration briefly takes Gregg's mother into custody, but both the government and the town support the family. Other novels such as Jean Ferris's Eight Seconds (Harcourt, 2000), Caroline Cooney's TheTerrorist (Scholastic, 1997) and David Klass's Home of the Braves (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2002) present more thought-provoking, realistic, and motivating treatments of similar issues. VOYA CODES: 3Q 2P J S (Readable without serious defects; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2002, Orca Soundings/Orca, 92p,