Author: Anthony McGowan
Publisher: Definitions
Publication Year: 2008
Most of the readers will be: Late middle school and early high school boys.
Reader's advisory: For another book on school violence try Shattering Glass by Gail Giles.
Summary:
As the knife inches closer to Paul Varderman he recalls the events that have led up to this moment. In the days prior to the big fight with the kids from Temple Moor Paul is befriended by Roth, the school bully. Roth is clearly using Paul, but in some ways it is better than being abused. But Paul has also been befriended by Shane and his group of "freaks." The freaks aren't so bad, but Paul feels like an outsider to their group. There are forces pulling on Paul from many different directions when he decides to go to the fight.
My favorite passage:
I am pushed to the ground, my knees leaving hollows in the wet earth. And I want to move. Either away or towards. To do something. But I have been burned to this spot, like one of the ashy bodies cooked to stillness in Pompeii. Only my eyes can move.
But that's enough for me to see it coming.
The knife that will kill me.
It is in the hand of a boy.
The boy is blurred, but the knife is clear.
He has just taken it from the inside pocket of his blazer.
There is something strange about the way the world is moving. I can see an outline of his arm - I mean, a series of outlines - tracing the motion from his pocket. A ghost trail of outlines. And so there is no motion, just these images, each one still, each one closer to me.
He is coming to kill me.
Now would be a good time to run.
I cannot run.
I am too afraid to run.
But I don't want to die here in the gypsy field, my blood flowing into the wet earth.
I must stop this.
And there is a way.
It comes to me now.
Part of it but not all of it.
Maths. Mr McHale. A sunny afternoon, and no one listening. He tells us about Zeno's Paradox. The one with fast-running Apollo and the tortoise. If only I could remember it. but I'm not good at school. All I know about is war, battles, armies, learned from my dad, whose chief love is war.
But I have to remember, because the knife is coming. Each moment perfectly still, yet each one closer.
Motion
and
perfect
stillness.
How can that be?
Yes, I think. To reach me the knife must come half the way. That takes, say, two seconds. But first it must go half that distance. Which takes one second. And half that distance, which takes half a second. And half that distance, which takes a quarter of a second. And so it goes on. Each time halving the distance and halving the time: 2+1+1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16. The sequence is infinite. It means he can never reach me. I am safe.
And so I can leave the me there, the me now, waiting for ever for the knife, while I go back to the beginning. (pg 6-8)
What I really think:
I really enjoy all the bits about the knife. I know they aren't really the point of the book. I know the point has more to do with bullying and fighting and all that, but the knife stuff is great. You can feel the tension as the knife slowly gets closer and closer.
As for the fighting stuff, this novel is an excellent deconstruction of a boy. It is easy to stand on the outside and wonder how perfectly nice young people get involved in things like this. McGowan has demonstrated how it's not just one thing that makes a boy carry a knife. It's a whole series of events that wear him down and make him doubt himself. This would be a nice novel to read in a classroom to really get a discussion going on school violence and how students can choose better ways to deal with their problems.
