Strays

"By turns insightful, devastatingly funny, and suffused with loneliness . . . this thoughtful novel about the lost and abandoned is a hopeful one, in which some strays find a place to belong." — Booklist

Sixteen-year-old Ted O’Connor’s parents just died in a fiery car crash, and now he’s stuck with a set of semi-psycho foster parents, two foster brothers — Astin, the cocky gearhead, and C.W., the sometimes gangsta — and an inner-city high school full of delinquents. He’s having pretty much the worst year of his miserable life. Or so he thinks. Is it possible that becoming an orphan is not the worst thing that could have happened to him?

Master novelist Ron Koertge brings his best work yet, a smart, surprising story full of trademark wit and sharp insight about a boy learning to run with a new pack.Using deft touches of humor and an element of the supernatural, Koertge (Boy Girl Boy) delivers a stirring account of a boy's rise above difficult circumstances.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Fresh and imaginative.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

This tight, smoothly plotted, perfectly pitched novel is among the author’s best work.
—School Library Journal (starred review)Ron Koertge is the author of many celebrated novels, including Margaux with an X, Stoner and Spaz, The Arizona Kid, Where the Kissing Never Stops, and The Brimstone Journals. He lives in South Pasadena, California.C.W. looks toward the screen door. "I was in this place once where the lady would tie off and shoot up while her old man made us paint the house. And all the other guys did was beat on me."

I look toward the big white front door. "What other guys?"

"This lady is not cooking for two when she can cook for three or four and make more money. That’s how it works, man. Where you been? There’s always other guys."

"Are they ever okay?" I ask.

"This is foster care, man. Nobody’s okay."

_______

STRAYS by Ron Koertge. Copyright © 2007 by Ron Koertge. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.