Walking the Edge - Hardcover

Mead, Alice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807586498 ISBN 13: 9780807586495

Publisher: Albert Whitman & Co, 1995

Synopsis

Struggling with his father's alcoholism and his mother's efforts to support him as a single parent, thirteen-year-old Scott becomes involved in a marine biologist's controversial and labor-intensive clam-growing operation.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Gr 5-8--To escape the realities of his near poverty and his abusive, drunken, drug-smuggling father, 13-year-old Scott Easton throws himself into a 4-H science project raising clams to restock the bay of his coastal Maine village. Mead does a fine job of conveying the boy's anger, frustration, and confusion. Indeed, his love of leaning into the wind while poised on a cliff becomes a metaphor for his precarious life and the balancing act it requires. When Scott realizes that his mother gets money from her estranged husband by allowing him to abuse her, the boy's rage results in spying on his father's illegal activities. Walking the Edge is not only a coming-of-age story. Inspired by a group of highly committed students who helped start the Beals Island Clam Hatchery 10 years ago, the novel is also a great science lesson in the ecology of the bay. Scott's amazement at the delicate and relentless process of life will be shared by readers. Mead has balanced a common image of Maine by presenting a picture of the rural poverty that is not conveyed by the cover of L.L. Bean catalogs.

Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Albert Whitman & Co
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0807586498
• ISBN 13: 9780807586495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 190