Bifocal

On the White Ravens' Outstanding New International Books for Children and Young Adults list, 2008

ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards finalist (YA Fiction category), 2007

Snow Willow Award nominee, 2008

Two bestselling authors join forces to write a powerful novel about racism.

A student arrested on suspicions of terrorism. A high school torn apart by racism. Two boys from two different sets of circumstances forced to choose sides.

These are the issues at the heart of Bifocal, a groundbreaking new novel for young-adults.

The story is told from two different points of view. Haroon is a serious student devoted to his family. His grandparents emigrated from Afghanistan. Jay is a football star devoted to his team. He is white.

One day their high school is put on lockdown, and the police arrest a Muslim student on suspicion of terrorist affiliations. He might be guilty. Or is he singled out because of his race?

The entire student body fragments along racial lines and both Haroon and Jay find that their differences initially put them at odds. The Muslim students become targets and a smoke-bomb is set off near their lockers while Jay and his teammates believe they've been set-up to look like racists.

Bifocal is, by no stretch, an easy book. Award-winning authors Deborah Ellis and Eric Walters deliver a serious, hard-hitting book about racism that does not talk down to young people.

Written by two bestselling and award-winning authors, Bifocal is based on a true incident. When a Muslim boy is arrested for suspicion of terrorist activity, the school population becomes polarized. Haroon, a young Muslim, is a serious student devoted to his family. Jay, a white kid and a rising football star who is new to the school, is fiercely devoted to his team. Amid an atmosphere of growing racial tension, both boys set out on a painful journey of self-discovery, where they must question their loyalties and the beliefs they have always taken for granted.

KLIATT

To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, November 2007: Ellis and Walters are familiar writers of YA stories and they successfully create a dramatic high school situation that brings current issues to the forefront. There are two narrators: Jay, a white boy, new to the school, who plays on the football team; and Haroon, a brilliant Muslim student. There is a terrorist scare on their high school campus and immediately all Muslim students are suspect. Even Haroon is leery about one of his Muslim classmates. Kevin, the captain of the football team, is a bully who uses his natural leadership abilities to hold power over others. Jay is susceptible to Kevin's lure, of course, and gets himself into a moral dilemma all his own. High school dynamics meld with white suspicion of brown people and immigrants in a suspenseful story that offers many opportunities for YA readers to consider their own attitudes about "others," and about police harassment. Reviewer: Claire Rosser

Deborah Ellis is the acclaimed author of The Heaven Shop and the Breadwinner trilogy. She has won the Governor General's Award, Canada's highest literary honor, and is a member of the Order of Ontario. She travels the world to hear the stories of children marginalized by war, illness, and poverty.

Eric Walters is one of Canada's most successful writers and prolific writers for teenagers. His novel Shattered recently won the 2007 National Chapter of Canada IODE Violet Downey Award and the 2007 White Pine Award. A former teacher, Eric visits classrooms across the country and he has already spoken to more than 750,000 students.