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Tag Archives: Trent Reedy

If You’re Reading This by Trent Reedy

26 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by truebooktalks in Young Adult

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Afghanistan, parental conflict, teen readers, Trent Reedy, United States, War

 

if you are reading this

The war in Afghanistan has had many casualties, many soldiers and many more family members.  Each deal with his or her losses in different ways, yet all are similar. Something has been taken that an never be replaced. Questions are raised that can never be answered, and lives are broken in ways that can never be fixed.

Mike, a young man whose father was killed in Afghanistan, begins to receive letters from his dead father on his sixteenth birthday.  Obviously, he wants to learn who has held those letters for the past eight years, but more than that, he wants to learn about his father and the dreams he had for his little boy.

Mike has always wanted to play football, but he knows he should be working to help his mother pay the bills since she alone is financially responsible for the family, and it is difficult for her to raise him and his little sister. His mother is also dead set against his playing football because she fears he will be hurt.  The letters encourage him to pursue his dreams and become the best he can, so he forges his mother’s signature on the release form for football and begins to live a life of lies and deceit.

How he resolves his dilemma and uncovers the sender of the letters makes this a moving story for any young person – especially a young man- who may be in conflict with his parents.  I recommend its purchase for any library with teen readers.

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Burning Nation by Trent Reedy

12 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by truebooktalks in Political fiction, Young Adult

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gun control, political fiction, Trent Reedy, United States

burning nation

How far should the Federal government go to impose its will on the citizens of the U.S. on any issue that the most of the people are against? Can they arrest or shoot those who disagree? Are National Guard units responsible to their state first and the Federal government second?

In this sequel to Divided We Fall, Reedy continues the story of a state that is taking a stand against the wishes of the federal government to force all citizens to carry a card that allows them to be tracked in all their movements.  Idaho finally secedes from the United States, and other states begin to follow the same action.  Each declares themselves to be a sovereign nation, and the U.S. sends in military power to stop the secession.

Private Wright and his fellow soldiers must go underground to keep from being captured by the feds.  They learn who they can trust and who they can’t.  They also learn that power sometimes causes people to do things that others thought they would never do. “Who’s right” and “who’s wrong” is a big theme in this story.

The very people that Wright and his friends see as saviors begin to deal with other combatants in a very brutal manner – even killing a person who had helped them.  Wright and his friends must ask themselves if this is the sort of freedom they wanted when they took up arms against the U.S.

A retired military person read this and commented that it is a great story with some technical inaccuracies, e.g. a 40 mm grenade launcher is an M203 not an M320 as stated in the story. All in all, it is a tension-building story that does not totally end with the conclusion of the book. Look for another to come.

Libraries that service older teenagers, grades 10 and up will want to add this to their collection. I could not recommend it for younger readers because of drinking, sex and violence.

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