Spotlight Wednesday: Trapped by Michael Northrop

Sometimes you open up a book and settle into a chair, and the hours just fly by. Make sure you've got nowhere to be when you crack open Michael Northrop's Trapped, because this one will keep your eyes glued to the page.

Here's a summary:

The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive….

Scotty and his friends Pete and Jason are among the last seven kids at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no one is coming for them. Still, it doesn’t seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially when distractingly hot Krista and Julie are sleeping just down the hall. But then the power goes out, then the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the days add up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision….

The suspense in this book from chapter to chapter is incredible. It builds and releases, ebbs and flows. There are light moments -- hopes of a crush fulfilled, jokes casually tossed around -- and then there are the times when the reality of the gangs' situation sets in. Are their parents still alive? Will they run out of food? Will the roof cave in? There are times when they pray.

Through it all, Scotty's perspective gives us a look at each character at his/her core. Slowly the high school reputations are stripped away (a la The Breakfast Club) and thoughts of Survival are all that are left. The Breakfast Club meets The Shining is a pretty good Hollywood line for Trapped.

In this wintry season, there's nothing better than curling up with a book that gives you a different kind of chill. It's no wonder the accolades are pouring in:

“Northrop deftly describes teens tested by the endless snow.”—USA Today

“The pages turn like wildfire.”—Booklist

“A gripping disaster story.”—Publishers Weekly

“A rousing, suspenseful tale… It all felt real.”—PW: ShelfTalker

“Truly impossible to put down.”—RT Book Reviews Magazine

And a cartoon by Michael Northrop himself:

Block out some time, and get snowed in with Scotty and the others. It's an eerie, suspenseful, perfect winter read. Peek at Chapter One here, but be prepared to get ensnared in the story.

PS-For laughs, from Michael:

(Cold?) Topic Tuesday - SNOW Joke!

Michael Northrop's newest release, TRAPPED, has actually been available to a few industrious fans (like me!) for a couple of weeks now, but believe it or not, THIS week is his actual "book birthday!" We'll be Spotlighting the bejeezus out of it tomorrow, but in the meantime, how about a "cold" Hot Topic to get you in the mood to curl up with Michael's latest dark, page-turner of a thriller? 

Brr! Doesn't that cover just make you want to cuddle up to a blazing fireplace? 

“Some snow days dump so much snow that only Stephen King could enjoy them. Trapped is narrated by a 15-year-old basketball player who’s trapped with six classmates — four other boys and two girls — in their rural New England high school while it snows for an entire week. The snow knocks out power, heat and, perhaps worst of all, cellphones. The compelling plot of this young-adult novel is more The Breakfast Club than Lord of the Flies. Author Michael Northrop deftly describes teens who are tested by the endless snow: ‘It wasn’t a storm; it was whatever comes after that.’" -- USA Today

When I thought about possible topics to relate to this book, of course, I didn't have to look much further than out my own window. Climate change is here, people, and New York City has had some record-breaking snowfalls of late. 

Um, yeah. That's a taxi. COMPLETELY COVERED IN SNOW. 

And while snow days can seem like a fun break from reality, the fact is, New York City was NOT prepared to handle such an epic storm. Streets weren't plowed and people couldn't get around, not to mention that eventually, trash collection became a real stinker of an issue (literally). Public transportation all but shut down completely. 

The characters in TRAPPED definitely had it worse than we did here in New York City, where there was heat, and food, and an end in sight. But I can't help but reflect on how unprepared we were for such weather, and how, even in the wake of that last storm, I'm not convinced we're truly prepared for the next one, if and when it should come. 

So, tell us, readers - have you found yourself in extreme weather situations, and if so, did you feel prepared? Or have other natural disasters around the globe inspired you to get involved in victims' aid, and maybe increase the odds that if and when there is a "next time," the big freeze won't seem quite so much like a total meltdown?

Hot Topic Tuesday: You otter know

Here at H.T. Tuesday, no subject, no matter how controversial, is off limits. This one hasn’t really gripped the public imagination on a midterm elections or Lady Gaga’s meat dress level yet, but it’s definitely bubbling under. Pretty soon, this debate will explode onto the national stage, and I think we should be prepared. I am talking, of course, about the fierce debate over which is cooler: the otter or the giant otter? I have attempted to break this complex issue down into a sensible list of pros and cons, steering clear of the heated emotions that often cloud such issues.

OTTER (just a normal otter, say the northern river otter of North America or the Eurasian otter)




Pros:

Cute and endearing; more so than the giant otter, which could frankly be a little intimidating in person

Very clever

An able fisherman!

Sleek, shiny, shampoo-commercial-quality fur

Cons:

On the Wild Animal Fight Chart, an otter could probably take, like, a rabbit. Even a very small predatory cat, like an ocelot, would be out of its league. Unless they were fighting in the water, in which case the ocelot would be screwed. (Otters are like the Aquaman of nature’s Superfriends!) The Wild Animal Fight Chart is mostly land-based, though, and beating a rabbit isn’t very impressive.

Similarly, their small size (like a cat, basically) is a problem in terms of lifting and pulling things. They would definitely need a cart to get their stuff through an airport, for example.

Fishy smell


GIANT OTTER


“Seriously, lady, if you don’t put me down, I’m’a kick your butt.”

Pros:
They are just as clever as other otters, and their fur is just as lustrous. They are equally skilled at fishing, but due to their large size (up to six feet!), they can catch much larger fish. Heck, they could probably capture a child on a float toy!

They enjoy a similar advantage on the Wild Animal Fight Chart. A full-grown giant otter could take anything up to, say, an Ewok.

They live in the Amazon. The animals there be ballers, yo. That is like the NBA of the animal world, and giant otters have some LeBron to ’em—they snack on piranhas!

Come on, it’s a giant otter… Those words are both cool. Put ‘em together and they own it!

Cons:

Bigger otter = bigger fishy smell

Too big to really “play well with others.” There aren’t a lot of places you could hang out with a giant otter without causing a commotion. A dog run and a fancy seafood restaurant are just two examples of trips that would go downhill fast.

More impressive but less cute, which is sort of a pro/con hybrid

In Conclusion:

And so there you have it. You can see why this is such a hot topic. I’ve been over the list many times now, and there are compelling cases for both the otter and the giant otter. So which is cooler? I say [drumroll please . . .] the giant otter! What do you think?

A Thanksgiving thank you

One of the things I’m most thankful for this year comes in a body bag:


I’ve received a few different versions of my debut novel in the mail lately: A month ago, it was the shiny new paperback and, on Tuesday, it was the second printing of the hardcover. I haven’t been this excited about a New Edition since Robby, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike were doing their thing:


Uh, I was very young at the time…

A second printing in books is like beating the point spread in sports. For debut novels, expectations are generally pretty low—somewhere between the Lions, who are playing today at 12:30, and the Bills, who aren’t scheduled to lose again until Sunday—so I sort of feel like my book just pulled off the upset.

And that brings me to something that I am even more thankful for: the readers. Specifically, readers of contemporary YA, an army of absolute rock stars willing to, for example, check out a little black book that literally looks like death—and in which not a single character sparkles—written by someone they’d never heard of.

Fans of contemporary YA don’t shy away from the dark corners, and they definitely don’t scare easily. They are willing to look at modern life the way it is and consider not only the good and the bad but also the gray areas in between. And because they are, writers who want to explore the complex, turbulent terrain of high school life can do so without pulling punches or making the whole thing an elaborate allegory involving unicorns.

I’m not sure what the pilgrims would think of all this, but then, have you seen the way they dressed?


So goth, right? And I hear they were big fans of The Smiths (John Smith, in particular).

I know what I think, though. So before the first forkful of turkey (is added directly to my waistline), I wanted to give a sincere Thanksgiving thank you to all the readers of contemporary YA. You (Plymouth) rock!

Spotlight Wednesday: A Classic!

I recently reread The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. It's one of the books that first got me interested in, well, books, and since there was nothing in particular on the spotlight schedule this week, it seemed like a good time to include a classic contemp. Why I decided to do it with a ridiculous cartoon is another matter...