The Body of Christopher Creed

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The Body of Christopher Creed

Paperback(First Edition)

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Paperback(First Edition)
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Overview

Chris Creed grew up as the class freak—the bullies’ punching bag. After he vanished, the weirdness that had once surrounded him began spreading. And it tore the town apart. Sixteen-year-old Torey Adams’s search for answers opens his eyes to the lies, the pain, and the need to blame someone when tragedy strikes, and his once-safe world comes crashing down around him. Includes an interview with the author and a reader’s guide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780152063863
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/01/2008
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.61(d)
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Carol Plum-Ucci has been widely praised for capturing the heart and voice of teens while seamlessly combining reality with the supernatural. Her first novel, The Body of Christopher Creed, was a Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an IRA-CBC Children's Choice, and a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery. Her subsequent books have all earned much critical acclaim and many award citations. www.carolplumucci.com

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

[set star] “Plum-Ucci knows her audience and provides her readers with enough twists, turns, and suspense to keep them absorbed.”—School Library Journal “A complex, credible look at alienation, compassion, loyalty, and cruelty.”—The Bulletin

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

[set star] “Plum-Ucci knows her audience and provides her readers with enough twists, turns, and suspense to keep them absorbed.”—School Library Journal (starred) “A complex, credible look at alienation, compassion, loyalty, and cruelty.”—The Bulletin —

From the Publisher

Chris Creed was the class freak -- his high school's prime outsider. And when he mysteriously disappears, the town of Steepleton is buzzing with rumors: Has he been murdered or kidnapped? Committed suicide? Perhaps, he has simply run away. The only clue is a cryptic email message left by Christopher 24 hours before he turns up missing. In it, Chris explains how envious he is of his classmate, golden-boy Torey Adams, and several of Torey's friends, who "get everything -- athletic ability, good personalities, beautiful girlfriends." Chris closes by stating that he simply wants to "be gone."
As the police and the Creed family search for answers, so too does Torey, who is haunted by Chris's disappearance. And as he digs deeper, and becomes aware of the lies, the pain, and peoples' need to blame others when tragedy strikes, he is forever changed. Chris's sheltered, privileged life threatens to crumble, as he gets to know some of the kids in town who have been labeled misfits and finds out that people are not always what they appear to be. This fast-paced, compelling, and suspenseful novel is a powerful coming-of-age story, and an eye-opening account of how preconceived notions can lead people to relate to each other in a negative and unjustifiable manner.

barnesandnoble.com

...a complex, credible look at alienation, compassion, loyalty, and cruelty among young and other adults.

Bulletin of the Center for Childrens Books

Plum-Ucci makes a memorable fiction debut with this soapy tale of a teenager's disappearance from a small New Jersey town asimmer with dirty secrets. Rumors fly when despised, perennial outcast Chris Creed vanishes, leaving an ambiguous e-mail note behind. Did he run? Commit suicide? Was he kidnapped? Murdered? Suspicion quickly centers on 17-year-old Bo Richardson, a hard case with a long juvenile record—but as Bo's naïve schoolmate Alex discovers, finger-pointing is not evidence. Revelations unfold as Alex begins to look past his comfortable life and circle of superficial friends: the adults in town are still flinching over a similar disappearance a generation ago; the seemingly distraught Mrs. Creed is a control freak of the most damaging kind; a schoolmate psychologically abused by her mother's current boyfriend reveals that the local police chief is one of her mother's former ones. Most startling of all, to Alex at least, beneath Bo's brutal exterior lies a fundamental decency. Alex's insights into the fears and secrets of people around him, and the way ugly truths can be hidden by easy lies, are hard-won enough to be convincing, and the plot peaks with a gloriously icky scene in which Alex breaks his leg while breaking into an old, naturally sealed Lenape tomb, and watches a more recent corpse spontaneously decompose upon exposure to fresh oxygen. Unlike such similarly harrowing stories as Michael Cadnum's Zero at the Bone (1996) and Jean Thesman's Calling the Swan (see below), this leaves readers with hints that the missing person is still alive somewhere—but readers will understand why, if so, he's not coming out of hiding any timesoon.(Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews