"Living with hope is like rubbing up against a cheese grater
It keeps taking slices off you until there's
so little left you just
crumble."
Quick witted, prank pulling graffiti artist Maxwell Connors is more observant then the average New Middletown teenager. And he doesn't like what he sees. New Middletown's children are becoming frighteningly obedient, and their parents and teachers could not be happier. As Max and his friend Dallas watch their classmates transform into model citizens, Max wonders if their only hope of freedom lies in the unknown world beyond New Middletown's walls where creativity might be a gift instead of a liability.
"Sometimes in the dream it's a faceless boy who chases her through the woods
dogging her heels like a loping predator.
She's running down the narrow trail that leads toward the creek,
and there he'll be, right on her tail
his sinewy arm reaching for her."
Caleb Devlin is a legand on Mockingbird Lane, the boy who terrorized an entire town before he got sent away. They say he hurt other kids, tortured animals, set fires and did things grown ups only speak of only in whispers. But that was all before Penny and her little brother moved here.
Now Caleb's back. Older and more dangerous then ever, and terrible things have started happening again. The whole town knows he's responsible,but the police can't do anything without proof. So penny and her friends have no choice but to try to stop him themselves.
Except now he's after them.
A sleepy summer is filled with dread in this tense and absorbing thriller by acclaimed Newberry Honor author Lennifer L. Holm
