cover image Unstoppable Moses

Unstoppable Moses

Tyler James Smith. Flatiron, $17.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-250-13854-5

The people of Guthrie, Ill., blame high school senior Moses for burning down the local bowling alley, an event that ended with his cousin—his best friend—getting shot by the police. But is Moses really to blame? If so, will he find forgiveness? In this highly introspective debut novel set during the aftermath of a prank gone terribly wrong, Smith persuasively and empathically portrays Moses’s conflicting emotions as he comes to terms with a traumatic event. Instead of going to jail, Moses is sentenced to a one-week camp where he is to be a “buddy” to a group of eight- to 11-year-olds. In a place where no one except the camp director knows about his past, Moses begins to feel like his old self, making friends with the other buddies and mentoring Lump, a bullied girl. But when Moses plays hooky and a child goes missing, his feelings of guilt and shame rise to the surface. Rather than casting judgment, Smith leaves readers to decide the degree of Moses’s culpability. This thought-provoking, gut-wrenching novel presents human nature as it is instead of as it should be. Ages 12–18. [em]Agent: Molly Ker Hawn, The Bent Agency. (Sept.) [/em]