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Summary
Summary
From award-winning author Todd Strasser comes a gripping new novel that explores the struggles of war, the price paid by those who fight in them, and what it really means to be a hero.
Jake Liddell is a hero.
At least, that's what everyone says he is. The military is even awarding him a Silver Star for his heroic achievements--a huge honor for the son of a military family. Now he's home, recovering from an injury, but it seems the war has followed him back. He needs pills to get any sleep, a young woman is trying to persuade him into speaking out against military recruitment tactics, and his grandfather is already urging him back onto the battlefield. He doesn't know what to do; nothing makes sense anymore.
There is only one thing that Jake knows for certain: he is no hero.
Author Notes
Todd Strasser was born in New York City. While still a child, Strasser and his parents moved to Roslyn Heights, New York on Long Island. Strasser attended the I.U. Willets Elementary school and then the Wheatley School for junior high and high school. Strasser went to college at New York University for a few years, before dropping out. He lived on a commune, and then in Europe, where he was a street musician.
While he was in Europe, Strasser wrote songs and poems in letters to his friends. He decided to try writing. Upon his return to the United States, Strasser enrolled at Beloit College where he studied literature and writing.
After graduating, Strasser worked at the Middletown Times Herald-Record newspaper in Middletown, New York, and later at Compton Advertising in New York City. In 1978, he sold his first novel, Angel Dust Blues. Strasser used the money to start the Dr. Wing Tip Shoo fortune cookie company. For the next 12 years, Todd sold more fortune cookies than books.
n 1990, Strasser moved to Westchester County, N.Y., where during the next few years, he wrote various movie novelizations, including Home Alone, Free Willy, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Jumanji. In 1993 he wrote Help! I'm Trapped in My Teacher's Body and since then has written 16 more Help! I'm Trapped... books, as well as several other series. All together, he has published more than 100 books. Strasser is alos a speaker at schools and conferences when he is not busy writing
Strasser has won numerous awards in the course of his career, including the 1995 New York State Library Association Award for Outstanding Children's Literature for the Help! I'm Trapped Series, several State Literature Awards, the 1996 International Reading Association Children's Choice as well as the 1996 Children's Book Council Children's Choice for Give a Boy a Gun and the 1996 American Library Association Best Book for Teens. He won the 1997 American Library Association Notable Book for Abe Lincoln for Class President, the 1988 American Bookseller Pick of the Lists, and was a 1988 Edgar Allan Poe nominee from the Mystery Writers of America.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Strasser (No Place) again tackles a difficult contemporary issue, focusing on Jake, a young, wounded war hero returning home from an unspecified war "over there" with heavily conflicted feelings. An idealistic high school student from a proud military family, Jake was swayed by a recruiter to enlist. After a year of combat, he is angry and disgusted by what he and his fellow soldiers have inflicted on others and by what they have endured or sacrificed. On the way to rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Jake is celebrated in his hometown by his family, the media, and the general public, but he feels much ambivalence about finishing his deployment, and grows deeply uneasy about being honored. Strasser moves back and forth between Jake's experiences on base and in battle (described in detail) and his challenges at home. Jake's internal debate over whether enlisting is a choice or if wars are too often fought by the poor, minorities, and "guys like me who are seduced by the action ads and unethical recruiters," is thought provoking. An epilogue presents a satisfying resolution to his struggle between feeling as if he's letting his family down and being true to himself. Ages 12-up. Agent: Stephen Barbara, Inkwell Management. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Wounded in action, and in line for a prestigious Silver Star, Jake Liddell has been sent back home to recover before finishing his tour of duty. Jake comes from a long, proud tradition of military heroes on both sides of his family, but nothing--neither his family history nor his JROTC training--prepares him for the true horrors of war. Gradually revealed in flashback chapters titled Aljahim, an Arabic word for hell (and perhaps intended as a nod to the seemingly endless U.S. involvement in various Middle Eastern conflicts), these horrors have left Jake disillusioned about military life, especially now that an intrepid high school journalist wants his participation in a documentary critical of the armed forces recruiting tactics. In his brief return home, Jake must navigate his conflicted feelings as he tries to please his formidable grandfather (a retired general), clarify his relationship with his girlfriend (who is waiting patiently for his physical and mental healing), and visit one former comrade (a triple amputee) and the widow of another (who happens to be an ex-girlfriend). What Strassers provocative novel lacks in subtlety, it makes up for with a timely, relevant critique of the American war machine and its dependence on idealistic and vulnerable young people. jonathan hunt (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Wounded in action and a near shoo-in for a prestigious Silver Star, Jake comes home from combat a hero, though silently questioning the purpose and legitimacy of a senseless war that has horribly maimed one of his friends and killed others. But what else is he to do? He comes from a military family; his father is a lieutenant colonel, and his grandfather a retired major general. And once he has received physical therapy, he will be sent back to the combat zone to complete his tour of duty. To refuse the medal and further duty while making public his reservations would be ruinous, reflecting dishonor on his family and making himself a pariah. Will Jake have the courage to take a stand? What price is he willing to pay for honor? Though principally concerned with considerations of ethics and morality, Strasser doesn't stint on vivid and visceral action as he offers flashbacks of Jake's combat experience. The drama inherent in the young man's crisis of conscience and his agonizing thoughts over appearing in an anti-war video are immediate and engaging. Strasser turns in another smoothly written, powerful novel as he engages a topic that is especially timely as more than 240,000 American soldiers are currently involved in some 172 foreign countries. The discussion this thought-provoking book will surely engender is both welcome and imperative.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2018 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Returning to his hometown for convalescence before heading off to a military hospital for more therapy, Jake Liddell is welcomed as a hero. But he doesn't feel like one. Despite his missing fingers and several bullet and shrapnel wounds, his physical injuries are relatively minor compared to those of some buddies who are missing limbs or dead. A candidate for the Silver Star, Jake is praised wherever he goes. But the real damage he's endured can't be seen. Jake knows his sweetheart, Aurora, must realize he's "not the same person" due to post-traumatic stress disorder. Compounding matters, Jake has to navigate the tension between his widowed father, a military officer who has never seen combat, and his maternal grandfather, a retired Army general and decorated Vietnam War veteran. Should he continue to seek therapy and return to finish his deployment, or take a stand against deceptive recruiters and what he's come to see as an insane war, potentially bringing shame on his family? Strasser packs a lot of narrative into a short novel, but never wanders far from a tightly wound and compelling story. Much of the dialogue between soldiers in combat scenes is dense with military terminology, but the author fluidly defines acronyms and slang in context. While the reading level and dynamic plot are suited to reluctant readers, descriptions of extreme violence, drug use, suicide, some rough language, and a significant moral quandary makes the novel more appropriate for an older middle school and high school audience. VERDICT Highly -recommended.-Bob Hassett, Luther Jackson Middle School, Falls Church, VA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Wounded in combat, Pfc. Jake Liddell returns home a hero; he has one week to decide what to do next.Jake's grandfather's a general and Vietnam War hero, his father a lieutenant colonel; Jake enlisted out of high school. After rehab, he's expected to return to war (set in an unnamed, generic Middle Eastern setting). Jake's family couldn't be prouder of him, but he's haunted by memories of taking lives and watching lives being taken by an enemy that includes malnourished children and the desperately poor, their country wasted by decades of war. An attractive female school newspaper reporter wants him to publicly decry how recruiters manipulate teensespecially minorities and the poorinto enlisting, portraying war as a glamorous video game, but he'd be invalidating his family and their choices. In terms of gender, the novel feels as if it's set during World War II: Thousands of American women serve overseas in combat and support roles, yet the novel's soldiers are exclusively male. Under fire, the soldiers wonder if their girls, safe back home and seemingly not pursuing careers or independent modern lives, are faithful to them. They regret killing armed children and civilians but never the need to wage this war at this time.Taut, compact, and suspenseful, the novel raises important questions about war but disappointingly punts on the bigger issues. (Fiction. 12-17) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
