Screaming Quietly

May 15, 2013
In this unvarnished read, a high schooler tries to distance himself from his profoundly autistic younger brother until he hooks up with a good woman who snaps him out of it. Ian's hopes of keeping his family situation secret at his new school and just being known for his football talent vanish when his brother Davey is assigned to a special needs class on the same campus. Despite part-time help from an aide who can wrestle him to the floor at need, Davey's frequent, wildly violent meltdowns have left Ian and his divorced mother struggling to have any social lives--which is why Ian is desperate to keep up appearances in the face of a developing relationship with a schoolmate, Jessica. Disturbingly, Ian bottles up his feelings until he lets them out by beating his brother. Jessica's insistence that she really does care about him and no, Davey's not a dealbreaker leads to a cathartic confession and an easy public acceptance of his sibling. Jacobs brings far more expertise about autism and living with an autistic child than about football ("Ian tore down the field and made a touchdown") to this rough-hewn effort. It's a timely topic with a pat resolution, framed for reluctant readers in choppy prose and short chapters, but it's not likely to break out of its hi-lo niche. (Fiction. 12 & up)

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July 1, 2013
Grades 7-10 Ian feels right at home on the football field, so much so that he has been promoted to the varsity team his sophomore year. Too bad he doesn't feel the same way with his own familyhis parents are divorced; his dad is distant and getting remarried; his mom is trying to date; and worst of all, his brother, Davey, is very autistic. Ian desperately tries to keep his challenging home life a secret from his friends and his popular cheerleader girlfriend, but when Davey starts going to the same school as Ian, the careful separation Ian has cultivated threatens to collapse. Exploring the pressures of having a special-needs sibling can be heavy stuff, especially Ian's anger about his friends' use of the word retard and his anxieties over whether he will ever be able to leave home, but there's enough football action and romance that it goes down easy. Like other titles in the Gravel Road series, this tackles a tough issue while keeping a speedy pace and driving toward an important message.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)