Dirt Road Home
Gr 5-8–A companion to the award-winning Alabama Moon (Farrar, 2006), this novel stands on its own. The book opens with lots of action, as 14-year-old Hal is led in chains to the Hellenweiler Boys' Home, a lockdown facility in Tuscaloosa where he is to serve out his sentence. He and his father have an agreement: Daddy is going to stop drinking and Hal is going to keep a clean slate while incarcerated. However, the teen soon discovers that this is almost impossible; he is immediately pressured to “claim” for one of two gangs, with both choices guaranteed to bring him trouble. Hal chooses the unthinkable–to join neither. The tension, positioning, threats, and shifting alliances among the boys are believable and will hook readers. The teen's focus on his relationship with his father, as well as a new girlfriend, add moments of hope. The corruption of the supervising adults is also credible, and Hal's idea to reveal it creates a page-turning experience. Unfortunately, the staff's downfall is a little too easily accomplished and rings false, especially after all the gritty realism that comes before it. A happy ending with Daddy, Hal, and Caboose (another loner from the facility) neatly wraps up the story, putting this book squarely in the camp for younger readers with a tougher edge.–Amy Cheney, Alameda County Library, Oakland, CAα(c) Copyright 2010.  Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.  No redistribution permitted.