ELEANOR & PARK ( 325 Pages)

The author of this novel has a wonderful name! Rainbow Rowell. What a colorful and hopeful name! This is a story of  first love. It is tender; it is sexy, it is about a family that is incredibly dysfunctional. Eleanor is the eldest child in the family, with two younger brothers and two younger sisters. Her stepfather is an alcoholic who is abusive to both Eleanor and her mother. The younger children live in fear of him, and have learned to cry silently whenever they hear this man screaming at their mother. Forced out of the house for a year, Eleanor returns to find the family living in a house much too small for a family of more than two. She shares a bedroom with all of the other children. She sneaks a bath before her stepfather gets home, because there is no door on the bathroom. She copes with the situation just barely. Then Eleanor meets Park while sitting next to him in the only available seat on the school bus. Their relationship progresses very, very slowly during the rides to and from school.  Oh, I didn't want this book to end, but I couldn't stop reading it. Your students will go crazy for this, so you'd better get more than one copy!