McDonald, Joyce

Swallowing Stones

It begins with a free and joyful act--but from then on, Michael finds it impossible even to remember what it felt like to be free and joyful.  When he fires his new rifle into the air on his seventeenth birthday, he never imagines that the bullet will end up killing someone.  But a mile away, a man is killed by that bullet as he innocently repairs his roof.  And Michael keeps desperately silent while he watches his world crumble.

Meanwhile Jenna, the dead man's daughter, copes with desperation of her own.  Through her grief, she tries to understand why she no longer feels comfortable with her boyfriend and why a near stranger named Michael keeps appearing in her dreams.

Suspenseful and powerfully moving, this is the unforgettable story of an accidental crime and its haunting web of repercussions.

Shades of Simon Gray (Readers Circle)

At the center of the town of Bellehaven stands an ancient oak. Two hundred years ago a young man was summarily hanged here after a hasty trial. Now the tree marks the scene of another violent event. Simon Gray, 16, has crashed his '92 Honda Civic into the tree and is in a coma. Most people blame the frogs, the plague of peepers that made the road all slippery that night. None of the adults know that Simon hacked the school computer for three older kids who had bullied him into procuring advance copies of tests for them. As he lies in the coma, they worry about their secret. And in his mind, Simon is walking out of his body and out of time to meet the young murderer at the tree, watched by the hordes of crows that have followed the plague of frogs. A strange mystery-fantasy with plenty of loose ends that point in some tantalizing directions. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell

Simon Gray is the ideal teenager — smart, reliable, hardworking, trustworthy. Or is he? After Simon crashes his car into The Liberty Tree, another portrait starts to emerge. Soon an investigation has begun into computer hacking at Simon’s high school, for it seems tests are being printed out before they are given. Could Simon be involved?

Simon, meanwhile, is in a coma — but is this another appearance that may be deceiving? For inside his own head, Simon can walk around and talk to some people. He even seems to be having a curious conversation with a man who was hung for murder 200 years ago, in the branches of the same tree Simon crashed into. What can a 200-year-old murder have to do with Simon’s accident? And how do we know who is really innocent and who is really guilty?


From the Hardcover edition.

Oxford Concise School Dictionary

Features cover with annotated extract to give guidance on level, suitability, and content with new text for the market-leading school dictionary range. * 40,000 words and phrases * Comprehensive coverage of new words eg. air bag, alternative energy * Information boxes give word families, usage, langauge and grammar notes * Word origins give history of language * Pronunciation guides help with unusual words eg. depot (say dep-oh), conscientious (say kon-she-en-shus) * Idiomatic phrases and expressions fully defined * Labels (formal/informal, in science fiction, in grammar) encourage accurate use of language * Up-to-date example sentences and phrases show how words are used in context * No confusing abbreviations * Introduction shows how to use the dictionary * Appendices include weights and measures and countries and peoples list

Devil on My Heels

Review: Benevolence, Florida, in the late 1950's doesn't seem like it could be the scene of ugly racism and violence. Fifteen-year-old Dove Alderman reads poetry, strolls through her daddy's orange groves, and rides around with Chase Tully in his silver-blue T-bird convertible. So when fires start breaking out in the groves, and nasty spats happen on the streets of Benevolence, the truth is slow to dawn on Dove. Her awakening is agonizing, but ultimately freeing.

In this complex and moving novel by Joyce McDonald (Swallowing Stones, Shades of Simon Gray), a privileged teen discovers that the line between right and wrong is often blurry, but important to establish. McDonald delves into the chilling world of the Ku Klux Klan, depicting the fear at the core of the hatred. Dove's education will parallel that of young readers who may not yet comprehend the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which one group can fear and oppress another--even half a century after this story takes place. (Ages 12 and older) --Emilie Coulter

It’s 1959 in Benevolence, Florida, and life is as sweet as a Valencia orange for 15-year-old Dove Alderman. Whether she’s sipping cherry Cokes with her girlfriends and listening to the Everly Brothers, eating key lime pie made by her housekeeper, Delia, or cruising around town with the coolest boy in school in his silver-blue T-bird convertible, Dove’s days are as smooth and warm as the soft sand in her father’s orange groves.

But there’s trouble brewing among the local migrant workers. Mysterious fires have broken out, and rumors are spreading that disgruntled pickers are to blame. Suddenly, black and white become a muddy shade of gray, and whispers of the KKK drift through the Southern air like sighs. The Klan could never exist in a place like Benevolence, Dove tells herself. Or could it?


From the Hardcover edition.

Shadow People

The four of them are united--not by ties of friendship, but rage. Gabriel is haunted by the specters of the thugs, still at large, who murdered his brother Ben for a lousy leather jacket. Lydia is stifled by her hypercontrolling father, who holds her entire family in his viselike grip. Alec wants revenge on all the authority figures who screwed him and made him into a loser high school drop out. And Hollis wants to get back at "the system" that counted out his genius just because it was encased in a small pudgy body that no one would ever take seriously. Though they don't really like each other, this troubled quartet is nevertheless drawn to the idea of the damage they can do if they pool their strength. But then Gem Hennessey unknowingly enters into the equation. Gabriel and Alec are both in love with her. Lydia is seethingly jealous of her, since she wants Gabe for herself. And Hollis sees the destruction of all his great plans if he doesn't get rid of her--permanently.

Joyce McDonald has written a tense psychological teen thriller that raises hard questions about the depth and breadth of adolescent frustration. While some teens will appreciate McDonald's writing as a tightly plotted tale of misguided fury and love gone wrong, more attentive readers will take in McDonald's message that every action has a consequence and that anger can effect change--but only if it is channeled positively. In both action and meaning, Shadow People is a noteworthy addition to post-Columbine adolescent literature. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

Gabriel, Lydia, Alex, and Hollis are four totally different teenagers who were thrown together by accident. Or maybe they were destined to meet, for they all share emotions that unite them—loneliness, frustration,
and anger. Apart they are ordinary enough, unremarkable and not much noticed. Together, in the dark of night, they are drawn to violence like moths to a flame. Gem is a girl whose path crosses theirs when she falls in love with Gabriel. Will the whirlpool of destruction swallow her, too?