num_pages: 559
description: From the unique combination of the timelessness of an old and seemingly forgotten world deftly mixed with the futuristic reality of a brave new world comes a chilling tale of ethics and mortality that is thought provoking and macabre, and yet strangly fascinating...Is this the way of the future? Matt is six years old when he discovers that he is different from other children, from other people. To most people Matt isn't a boy, but a beast, dirty and disgusting. But to El Patron, lord of a country called Opium, Matt is the guarantee of eternal life. El Patron loves Matt as he loves himself - for Matt is himself. They share the same DNA. As Matt struggles to understand his existence and what that existence trully means, he is threatened by a host of sinister and manipulating characters, from El Patron's power-hungry family to the brain-deadened eejits and mindless slaves that toil Opium's poppy fields. Surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards, Matt longs for escape. But even escape is no guarantee of freedom because Matt is marked but his difference in ways that he doesn't even suspect.
language: English
title: The House of the Scorpion
titlecomplete: The House of the Scorpion
characters: Tam Lin, Fidelito, Chacho, Ton-Ton, El Patron, Maria Mendoza
genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Teen, School, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Childrens, Fantasy, Dystopia
ratings_count: 90623
series: Matteo Alacran
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Newbery Medal, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: National Book Award
category: Young People's Literature, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Mythopoeic Fantasy Award
category: Children's Literature, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Buxtehuder Bulle, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Michael L. Printz Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: South Carolina Book Award
category: Junior Book Award, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Grand Canyon Reader Award
category: Teen Book, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Rhode Island Teen Book Award, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Vermont Golden Dome Book Award, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice Award
category: Senior, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Michigan Library Association Thumbs Up! Award, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Lincoln Award, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Gateway Readers Award, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Oklahoma Sequoyah Award
category: YA
publisher: Thorndike Press