The End of the World as We Know It by Lesley Choyce

Josh has always thought of himself as a “ good cover-up artist” (pg. Scam begins with sixteen-year-old narrator Josh Haslett dealing with the death of his mother. Moliere's The Misanthrope or Thoreau's Walden?īrenda Halliday is a Selector / Buyer at National Book Service.At 15 short chapters and a mere 113 pages, and a story plotted by Lesley Choyce (see my reviews of Jeremy Stone and Into the Wastelandfrom Red Deer Press, 20 respectively), Scam is a valuable addition to Orca Book Publishers' Orca Soundings series of hi-lo books for teens with a story that explores the resiliency of youth. How many YA novels contain references to Hannibal's armies, Work in Choyce's writing-with a respect for the thoughtful teen There is tenderness, humour and a delightful, fine intelligence at It is a journey that ends not, perhaps, as we The end is not wrapped up in a tidy package, but Carson does come to a World intrudes on their Walden-like existence and time changes things. When a student drug dealer is arrested and the school is closedĭown, Carson and Christine flee to a cabin in the woods. Parental neglect and poverty but, despite great pain, she has managed to Carson has always felt like the onlyĭysfunctional member of an ideal family.

Even as he comes to care for her, he is tempted Woman who lives in a local trailer park, her heavy eye makeup and When Carson meets Christine, a troubled young Narrator, by turns cynical and caring, as he looks back at a School cook who escaped from Vietnam, or Carson's roommate whoĬrawls the web trying to amass plutonium.ĭespite his apparent disregard for life, Carson is an engaging TheĬommunity and the school are peopled by complex, three-dimensionalĬharacters: the bookstore owner expounding on military history, the kind The Nova Scotia fishing community and the rejected rich kids. Cromwell, whose affection for his studentsĬhoyce perfectly captures the mutual distrust between the locals in Out of three schools before he lands at Farnsworth (aka Flunk Out)Īcademy, a haven for 'alienated achievers' run by a brilliantīut eccentric headmaster, Dr. The world and everything in it, including himself. As the novel opens, 16-year-old Carson hates Lesley Choyce is a man of many passions: author, musician,īroadcaster, publisher, teacher, surfer. APA style: The End of the World As We Know It.The End of the World As We Know It.' Retrieved from

2007 Canadian Children's Book Centre 01 Jun.

MLA style: 'The End of the World As We Know It.' The Free Library.

The End of the World as We Know It by Lesley Choyce