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Book Review
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The fictional Wolf Creek is a tight-knit Adirondack mountain community that serves a maximum security prison. Kate Messner’s latest novel is based on the 2015 prison breakout where two inmates escaped The Clinton County Correctional Facility and attempted to make their way to Canada.
The story opens with a letter from narrator Nora Tucker who explains that the contents of the book is her contribution to the Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule Project. Nora has collected an impressive array of documents including letters, articles, notes, lists, photographs, signs, drawings, posters, poems, maps and others. Of interest are the parody articles written by Nora’s friend Lizzie Bruno that satirize events in the small community as well as the comic drawn by Nora’s little brother Owen who wants to help the police catch the prisoners. The focus on the future, shown through the letters to future residents penned by Nora and others, speaks to the notion that the community is looking towards the future.
The writing of newcomer Elidee Jones includes poems modeled after Jacqueline Woodson, Nikki Grimes, Gwendolyn Brooks and Paul Laurence Dunbar among others. Elidee and her mother have moved mid-school year to Wolf Creek to be closer to her brother who is serving 15 years in the town’s maximum security prison. The novel also speaks to issues of social inequality both in the levels of incarceration and the observation that there is a big difference between the African-American and Latino prisoners and local correctional officers.
Following the prison breakout the town is put under pressure, which is felt by young and old alike. First the media onslaught of reporters who “get really bummed out when there’s no arugula” and bemoan the tentative cellular reception in the Adirondack mountain town (66). The community also feels stress since most of the jobs revolve around the prison and parents are working overtime all the while trying to keep their children safe. Tension in the town escalates as time passes and the inmates remain at large. Nora writes: “this manhunt is making everybody scared and grouchy and weird” (180).
The narrative is accessible to many readers because of the variety of text types. The book is sometimes funny and at other times serious, but it is always engaging since the voices of the young people of Wolf Creek tell a story that is very much close to home.
About the Author:
Kate Messner is a former middle school teacher and reporter who writes books for young people. She has written nine picture books and eleven novels, of which Breakout is the latest.
The story opens with a letter from narrator Nora Tucker who explains that the contents of the book is her contribution to the Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule Project. Nora has collected an impressive array of documents including letters, articles, notes, lists, photographs, signs, drawings, posters, poems, maps and others. Of interest are the parody articles written by Nora’s friend Lizzie Bruno that satirize events in the small community as well as the comic drawn by Nora’s little brother Owen who wants to help the police catch the prisoners. The focus on the future, shown through the letters to future residents penned by Nora and others, speaks to the notion that the community is looking towards the future.
The writing of newcomer Elidee Jones includes poems modeled after Jacqueline Woodson, Nikki Grimes, Gwendolyn Brooks and Paul Laurence Dunbar among others. Elidee and her mother have moved mid-school year to Wolf Creek to be closer to her brother who is serving 15 years in the town’s maximum security prison. The novel also speaks to issues of social inequality both in the levels of incarceration and the observation that there is a big difference between the African-American and Latino prisoners and local correctional officers.
Following the prison breakout the town is put under pressure, which is felt by young and old alike. First the media onslaught of reporters who “get really bummed out when there’s no arugula” and bemoan the tentative cellular reception in the Adirondack mountain town (66). The community also feels stress since most of the jobs revolve around the prison and parents are working overtime all the while trying to keep their children safe. Tension in the town escalates as time passes and the inmates remain at large. Nora writes: “this manhunt is making everybody scared and grouchy and weird” (180).
The narrative is accessible to many readers because of the variety of text types. The book is sometimes funny and at other times serious, but it is always engaging since the voices of the young people of Wolf Creek tell a story that is very much close to home.
About the Author:
Kate Messner is a former middle school teacher and reporter who writes books for young people. She has written nine picture books and eleven novels, of which Breakout is the latest.