Fifteen and Change

by Max Howard

Overview

Zeke would love to be invisible. His mother is struggling to make ends meet and stuck with a no-good boyfriend. Zeke knows he and his mom will be stuck forever if he doesn't find some money fast. When Zeke starts working at a local pizza place, he meets labor activists who want to give him a voice, and the living wage he deserves for his work. Zeke has to decide between living the quiet life he's carved for himself and raising his voice for justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538382608
Publisher:	Enslow Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	10/16/2018
Series:	YA Verse Series
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

Editorial Reviews

2018-08-20

Fifteen-year-old Zeke gets a job and becomes involved with community organizers who aim to unionize local food-service workers in this novel in verse for reluctant readers.

Zeke hates their lives in the city with Paul, his alcoholic mom's abusive boyfriend, a hypocritical Christian, and he misses his old home in small-town Wisconsin. Spurred to action by the idea of making enough money for them to move back, he takes a job at Casa de Pizza, where he comes to understand the desperate circumstances many of his minimum-wage-earning co-workers face. Zeke keeps the job secret, fearing Paul will try to steal his earnings. Pagelong free-verse poems evocatively describe Zeke's experiences and quickly propel the story forward. The dynamics between the employees at Casa de Pizza (Zeke and several others are white, Timothy is black, Hannah is originally from Oaxaca) will be recognizable to teens who've worked in food service. Readers will easily sympathize with the all-too-true-to-life situations with which the characters are coping—racism and sexual harassment, Zeke's awful home life, and a co-worker's eviction with her children among them. Though short, this story develops the characters' personalities, sketches in the history of the labor movement, and includes a subdued romantic subplot, effectively balancing these various elements.

An auspicious ending may seem a bit unlikely to some, but this novel has many appealing aspects that will draw readers in. (Fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus — "Page-long free-verse poems evocatively describe Zeke’s experiences and quickly propel the story forward … Readers will easily sympathize with the all-too-true-to-life situations with which the characters are coping … This novel has many appealing aspects that will draw readers in". Midwest Book Review — "An exceptionally well-written novel by an author who has impressively mastered character and narrative driven storytelling, Fifteen and Change is an especially recommended addition to school and community library Contemporary General Fiction collections for young readers".School Library Journal — "This novel in verse has a sense of urgency. Short poems provide readers with snapshots of life in poverty, loneliness in high school, and the unfair treatment of fast food employees by management".

From the Publisher