Torched
After16-year-old Ellie’s aging hippie parents are arrested for growing pot in their Portland, Oregon, neighborhood, the FBI makes a deal: her parents will go free if she agrees to infiltrate the local activist group, Mother Earth Defenders (MEDs), who may be planning not only ecoterrorism to protest corporate greed and pollution but also harm to individual people. To prove herself to the MEDs and to the FBI, she helps set fire to the local Hummer dealership. But how far will the MEDs go? And the police? The contemporary mix of politics and thrilling action will grab teens, not just environmentalists, as Ellie must decide how to save her parents and save the earth. Romance adds to the conflict as she falls in love with gorgeous MED member Coyote, who is both an activist and an ardent pacifist. Both the MEDs and the FBI have good guys and bad guys, and this suspenseful story will spark discussion about what it means to fight for right “by any means necessary.” Grades 8-11. --Hazel Rochman