Teen Fiction - Body, Mind & Health, Teen Fiction - Family & Relationships, Teen Fiction - School

Georgie

Name: Georgie
Author: Malachy Doyle
ISBN: 9781582347530

by Malachy Doyle

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Overview

Georgie is a damaged young boy acting out his rage and grief on all those who try to help him. In a final attempt to break through to Georgie, his caretakers send him to a new facility and this move is, at last, a catalyst for change. As Georgie struggles to find a place for himself in this new home he meets two people who change his life: A young girl with whom he shares the pain of loss, and a counselor whose patience and tender care help him find and maintain his sense of self.

A raw, emotional and even controversial read, Georgie will strike a nerve with young adult readers. Intense situations and emotions are skillfully handled by this truly talented author.

Author Biography: Malachy Doyle is the author of many award-winning picture books. His book Tales from Old Ireland was named a 2000 Parents Choice(r) Gold Award and also received the Irish Bisto Award. He writes full time, apart from visiting schools or escaping into the mountains, and his books are available in eleven different languages. Malachy has been married for 22 years and has three children: Naomi, Hannah, and Liam. He lives in Wales.

With help from a sympathetic fellow resident, a patient teacher, and other staff at a school for emotionally disturbed teenagers, fourteen-year-old Georgie begins to find his way back to sanity.

Synopsis

A Book Sense 76 Children's Pick A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

Get inside the mind of a teenager, horribly damaged as a child, who is struggling to break free from his broken mind.

Publishers Weekly

An orphaned 14-year-old transforms from a mute and angry boy who shuns human contact to a young man coming to terms with his past and seeking the company of others. According to PW, "Georgie's uplifting story demonstrates what a few people who genuinely care can do for another human being." Ages 12-up. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Malachy Doyle

Malachy Doyle is the author of many award-winning picture books. His book Tales from Old Ireland was named a 2000 Parents Choice(r) Gold Award and also received the Irish Bisto Award. He writes full time, apart from visiting schools or escaping into the mountains, and his books are available in eleven different languages. Malachy has been married for 22 years and has three children: Naomi, Hannah, and Liam. He lives in Wales.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

School Library Journal

Gr 7-10 Terror, rage, and a total inability to deal with the horrors that life has brought him have left Georgie isolated in the most extreme ways. At 14, he does not speak, cannot read or write, and spends his days alone in a room that has been stripped of anything that he could break or destroy. A new flood of rage occurs when Georgie learns that he is being sent to a different residential home, another change he is ill equipped to handle. Once there, though, he meets Tommo, a teacher with an uncanny ability to reach damaged children, and Shannon, a girl who has begun to heal from the traumas of her own life. The love and acceptance he feels at his new school and permission to grieve for his murdered mother allow him, too, to take steps toward recovery. Narrated by Georgie, with occasional first-person accounts by Shannon, the novel brilliantly takes readers inside a damaged psyche. British terminology and descriptions of the rural Welsh countryside provide an external environment in which the story of an inner journey is rooted. Everyday events such as eating meals with others are fraught with overwhelming emotion in this teen's world, a very real place into which readers are drawn. While both Georgie and Shannon at times sound surprisingly insightful about their problems, on the whole this book is exceptionally well crafted, from its gripping opening to its hopeful conclusion. It's a perfect hand-sell and a book with punch for teens who go for emotionally wrenching fiction. -Faith Brautigam, Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, IL Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.