Breakout

Description

Nora Tucker is looking forward to summer vacation in Wolf Creek--two months of swimming, popsicles, and brushing up on her journalism skills for the school paper. But when two inmates break out of the town's maximum security prison, everything changes. Doors are locked, helicopters fly over the woods, and police patrol the school grounds. Worst of all, everyone is on edge, and fear brings out the worst in some people Nora has known her whole life. Even if the inmates are caught, she worries that home might never feel the same. Told in letters, poems, text messages, news stories, and comics--a series of documents Nora collects for the Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule Project--Breakout is a thrilling story that will leave readers thinking about who's really welcome in the places we call home.

Kate Messner is a former middle-school English teacher and the author of E. B. White Read Aloud Award winner The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. and its companion, The Exact Location of Home; Sugar and Ice; Eye of the Storm; Wake Up Missing; All the Answers; The Seventh Wish; Capture the Flag; Hide and Seek; the Marty McGuire chapter book series; the Ranger in Time chapter book series; and several picture books. She lives on Lake Champlain with her husband and two kids. When she's not reading or writing, she loves hiking, kayaking, biking, and watching thunderstorms over the lake. www.katemessner.com @KateMessner

Authentic . . . . Middle school worries and social issues skillfully woven into a moving, hopeful, STEM-related tale. -- starred review * Kirkus Reviews on THE EXACT LOCATION OF HOME * Vivid characters and situations, along with clear, simple writing and plotting, make this an accessible and enlightening read. A gentle but truthful look at poverty and homelessness. -- starred review * School Library Journal on THE EXACT LOCATION OF HOME * An empathetic, beautiful, magical, fiercely necessary book that stares unflinchingly at the very real challenges contemporary kids face and gently assures them they are not alone. Kate Messner gives her readers a story to cherish. -- Anne Ursu, author of BREADCRUMBS and THE REAL BOY on THE SEVENTH WISH Hopeful, empathetic, and unusually enlightening. -- starred review * Kirkus Reviews on THE SEVENTH WISH * Rich and daring . . . As she did in All the Answers, Messner lightens a heavy theme with a bit of magic. * Publishers Weekly on THE SEVENTH WISH * It's no surprise that Kate Messner's magic pen could write a charming, moving, funny, and ultimately very surprising story about a magic pencil! -- Wendy Mass, New York Times best selling author of 11 BIRTHDAYS on ALL THE ANSWERS Will appeal to Wendy Mass fans as well as those who love Messner's previous novels. * School Library Journal on ALL THE ANSWERS *