Book Selections

Thursday, November 1, 2012

November 2012

The November selection is a book that won the 2012 Michael L. Printz Award, given to “a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature” and the 2012 William C. Morris YA Award for an outstanding debut.



In the remarkable, bizarre, and heart-wrenching summer before Cullen Witter’s senior year of high school, he is forced to examine everything he thinks he understands about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town. His cousin overdoses; his town becomes absurdly obsessed with the alleged reappearance of an extinct woodpecker; and most troubling of all, his sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel, suddenly and inexplicably disappears.  Meanwhile, the crisis of faith spawned by a young missionary’s disillusion in Africa prompts a frantic search for meaning that has far-reaching consequences. As distant as the two stories initially seem, they are woven together through masterful plotting and merge in a surprising and harrowing climax.

If you finish with Where Things Come Back, check the selections tab for some "extra credit" reading similar to this book.

Enjoy!