Dead Boys

In the desert town of Richland, Washington, there stands a giant sycamore tree. Horribly mutated by nuclear waste, it feeds on the life energy of boys that it snags with its living roots. And when Teddy Matthews moves to town, the tree trains its sights on its next victim. From the start, Teddy knows something is very wrong with Richland-every kid he meets disappears before his eyes. A trip to the cemetery confirms that these boys are actually dead and trying to lure him to the tree. But that knowledge is no help when Teddy is swept into the tree's world, a dark version of Richland from which there is no escape . . .

'If they ever come here,' his father had warned, 'drop everything. Just run and hide!' And now they were here. God's Freedom Army or whatever their name was. Bringers of blood and suffering. Rebels! Killers! Every one of them. Hundreds of thousands of children are abducted from their homes and used as boy soldiers. This is the story of one them. 12-year-old Sam is ripped from his village in Uganda and forced to march with rebel soldiers to their training camp in southern Sudan. A weapon is thrust into his innocent young hands and his life becomes that of enemies and battles, violence and death, as he's turned into a soldier. With no escape, danger is around every corner, the threat of death is everywhere. But there are ways to survive. Sam becomes friends with a fellow boy soldier and together their dreams of escape become a strength. Together, they are ready to fight.

A decade dead, Jacob Campbell is a preservationist, providing a kind of taxidermy to keep his clients looking lifelike for as long as the forces of entropy will allow. But in the Land of the Dead, where the currency is time itself and there is little for corpses to do but drink, thieve, and gamble eternity away, Jacob abandons his home and his fortune for an opportunity to meet the man who cheated the rules of life and death entirely. According to legend, the Living Man is the only adventurer to ever cross into the underworld without dying first. It's rumored he met his end somewhere in the labyrinth of pubs beneath Dead City's streets, disappearing without a trace. Now Jacob's vow to find the Living Man and follow him back to the land of the living sends him on a perilous journey through an underworld where the only certainty is decay. Accompanying him are the boy Remington, an innocent with mysterious powers over the bones of the dead, and the hanged man Leopold l'Eclair, a flamboyant rogue whose criminal ambitions spark the undesired attention of the shadowy ruler known as the Magnate. An ambitious debut that mingles the fantastic with the philosophical, Dead Boys twists the well-worn epic quest into a compelling, one-of-a-kind work of weird fiction that transcends genre, recalling the novels of China Miéville and Neil Gaiman.

Fans of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book will embrace this darkly funny novel! Crow isn't like the other kids. He stinks. He’s got maggots. His body parts fall off at inopportune moments. (His mom always sews them back on, though.) And he hasn’t been able to sleep in years. Not since waking up from death. But worse than the maggots is how lonely Crow feels. When Melody Plympton moves in next door, Crow can’t resist the chance to finally make a friend. With Melody around he may even have a shot at getting his life back from the mysterious wish-granting creature living in the park. But first there are tests to pass. And it will mean risking the only friend he’s had in years. Debut author Laurel Gale’s story about friendship fulfilled may be the most moving—and most macabre—yet. Praise for Dead Boy “A stinky, creepy tale for anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider.” —Kirkus Reviews “Gale takes readers on a dark and surprisingly funny journey. . . . A great recommendation to middle grade fans of dark humor.” —School Library Journal

It doesnt take much to become a dead boy walking in America or elsewhere and on a collision course with early death or some other form of youth related violence. For a young African-American named Trayvon Martin, all it took was to run into a young white wanna be police packing a gun and willing to use it. He was shot to death in Sanford, Florida in a tragic case which exploded into the headlines in March 2012. For others, it is driving a nice car in a white neighborhood in a major American city, the way it happened to Syracuse native, Johnnie Gamage in Pittsburgh. He was shot and killed by Pittsburgh police. He was driving a Jaguar owned by his uncle, Ray Seals, formerly of Pittsburgh Steelers football team For Stanley Tookie Williams, popular for all the wrong reasons yet nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, it is for crimes he was charged with and executed as the leader of the CRIPS gang in Los Angeles. For many others too many list to list here, it is being at the wrong place at the wrong time when a drive by-shooting occurs. For many more around the globe, you are a dead boy walking when you are born in a war torn country and are forced into an army as a child soldier.

Dorais and Lajeunesse analyse the adverse ways being stigmatized as homosexual affects personality and behaviour, discerning four types of reaction: the 'perfect boy,' whose perfectionism and asexuality are an attempt to minimize the difference between how he is perceived and what he is supposed to be; the 'chameleon,' who attempts to keep everyone from suspecting his secret but constantly feels like an impostor; the 'token fag,' who serves as a scapegoat to his peers, especially at school, and suffers a consequent rejection and lack of self-esteem; and the 'rebel,' who actively rejects any stigma based on his sexual orientation and non-conformity. They show that those who are heterosexual but suspected of being homosexual are most at risk of suicide and make recommendations for suicide prevention.

These hard-hitting, deeply felt stories follow straight arrows and outlaws, have-it-alls and outcasts, as they take stock of their lives and missteps and struggle to rise above their turbulent pasts. A salesman re-examines his tenuous relationship with his sister after she is brutally attacked. A house painter plans a new life for his family as he plots his last bank robbery. A drifter gets a chance at love when he delivers news of a barfly's death to the man's estranged daughter. A dissatisfied yuppie is oddly envious of his ex-con brother as they celebrate their first Christmas together. Set in a Los Angeles depicted with aching clarity, Lange's stories are gritty, and his characters often less than perfect. Beneath their macho bravado, however, they are full of heart and heartbreak.

The Wild Boys is a futuristic tale of global warfare in which a guerrilla gang of boys dedicated to freedom battles the organized armies of repressive police states. Making full use of his inimitable humor, wild imagination, and style, Burroughs creates a world that is as terrifying as it is fascinating.