Shades of Simon Gray - Hardcover

McDonald, Joyce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385326599 ISBN 13: 9780385326599

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2001

Synopsis

Simon Gray is the ideal teenager — smart, reliable, hardworking, trustworthy. Or is he? After Simon crashes his car into The Liberty Tree, another portrait starts to emerge. Soon an investigation has begun into computer hacking at Simon’s high school, for it seems tests are being printed out before they are given. Could Simon be involved?

Simon, meanwhile, is in a coma — but is this another appearance that may be deceiving? For inside his own head, Simon can walk around and talk to some people. He even seems to be having a curious conversation with a man who was hung for murder 200 years ago, in the branches of the same tree Simon crashed into. What can a 200-year-old murder have to do with Simon’s accident? And how do we know who is really innocent and who is really guilty?

About this title

Review:

At the center of the town of Bellehaven stands an ancient oak. Two hundred years ago a young man was summarily hanged here after a hasty trial. Now the tree marks the scene of another violent event. Simon Gray, 16, has crashed his '92 Honda Civic into the tree and is in a coma. Most people blame the frogs, the plague of peepers that made the road all slippery that night. None of the adults know that Simon hacked the school computer for three older kids who had bullied him into procuring advance copies of tests for them. As he lies in the coma, they worry about their secret. And in his mind, Simon is walking out of his body and out of time to meet the young murderer at the tree, watched by the hordes of crows that have followed the plague of frogs. A strange mystery-fantasy with plenty of loose ends that point in some tantalizing directions. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell

From the Back Cover:

“A page-turning plot, good characterization, and very convincing setting will have this suspenseful thriller driving up library circulation.”–Kirkus Reviews

From the Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0385326599
• ISBN 13: 9780385326599
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256