Dead Ends - Softcover

Erin Lange

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571308295 ISBN 13: 9780571308293

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2001

Synopsis

Dead Ends

About this title

About the Author:

Erin Jade Lange is the author of Dead Ends and Butter, an ABC New Voices selection, writes facts by day and fiction by night. As a journalist, she is inspired by current events and real-world issues and uses her writing to explore how those issues impact teenagers. She is an only child, which means she spent a lot of time entertaining herself as a kid. This required her to rely heavily on her own imagination, which is probably why she became a writer. Erin lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

www.butterslastmeal.com

From School Library Journal:

Gr 8 Up-High school junior Dane has anger management issues. Although he is an excellent student, he is one suspension away from expulsion, and he must spend time with his neighbor Billy D., a boy with Down syndrome, to work off his detentions. What begins as a community-service project slowly turns into real friendship. Both boys have single mothers; Billy wants to find his missing father, but Dane wants nothing to do with his. Billy is obsessed with an atlas full of riddles his father left him and is convinced that they point to his dad's whereabouts. He draws Dane and their friend Seely into solving the mystery, but as they get closer to Billy's father, a sad truth appears about why Billy's mother left the man. Although the story has anger, abuse, and bullying at its core, it never feels heavy-handed, possibly because of the well-realized relationships between characters. Dane and his mother are close and loving even as they drive each other crazy. Billy and Dane's friendship is based on their similarities: they are both fatherless, have tempers, and appreciate cute girls. Dane grows up over the course of the story; he realizes he needs help in controlling his anger and seeks it out. He also gains a girlfriend in Seely and treats her well. Lange writes realistically about teens with rough lives, and readers will believe in the friendships, feel Billy's pain of abandonment, and appreciate the honesty of the not-tied-up-with-a-bow ending.-Geri Diorio, Ridgefield Library, CTα(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0571308295
• ISBN 13: 9780571308293
• Binding: Paperback