In too deep by DC Grant
I suspect there is a special arts grant to encourage New Zealand authors to write ‘books for boys’. Certainly there have been many books reviewed here in the past months. This book is obviously the one that I have found most recently.
Josh is a young man whose life is falling apart. His father’s business has gone bankrupt and both the house and his grandparent’s were mortgaged to finance a ’survival’ package. Everything is gone. On their last Christmas holiday at the Grandparent’s property at the beach Josh’s mother volunteers him to teach another boy to surf. Combined with the fact that the school bully has also come to the same beach for a holiday, Josh is facing the worst summer holiday ever.
For the most part this book is very average. But then Scholastic specialises in average books for average kids. I did find the angry voice of Josh very convincing. At fifteen when your world appears to be falling apart, anger is going to be the most natural reaction, and here it is convincingly portrayed.
However, I do wish that someday a book for teens would provide a realistic solution to the problem of a bully. Somehow waiting until the bully is in a life or death situation and then rescuing him is not going to work for every kid.
