The Goats - Brock Cole
Camp tale gives readers a lot to think about.
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- Author:Brock Cole
- # of pages: 192
- Publisher:Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Original Publication Date: 03/13/2005
- Genre: Fiction - Friendship
- Paperback: $5.95
- Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: 10-14
- Read Aloud: 10+
- Read Alone: 10+
Parents need to know
Families can talk about the emotional and physical effects of bullying and the human tendency to single out those who are "different." Why have Howie and Laura been labeled social outcasts? Do they accept these labels or reject them? By the end of the story, have Howie and Laura become different people? How are they different?
Message
Social Behavior:
The boy and girl run away, lie, steal. The girl is concerned about touching a black person's skin.
Consumerism:
A few products mentioned: Cokes, a Cabbage Patch doll, etc.
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:
Teen girls smoke, reference to a father who took drugs.
Violence
A boy has scars from cigarette burns.
Sex
A boy and girl are stripped and left together. The boy notices the girl's pubic hair and nipples. They see a centerfold. The girl has her period. A teen boy puts his hand on a girl's backside. A girl wears a "Milk Bar" T-shirt. Some innuendo.
Language
One mild word for breasts.
Common Sense says
What's the story?
Reviewed by Amy Brotman
Through the difficult process of getting off the island, getting clothes, and surviving while avoiding the widespread search that is made for them by a camp more afraid of lawsuits than concerned about the cruelty practiced by its residents, they gradually and tentatively form an emotional bond that becomes the one thing they can rely on as the whole world seems to conspire against them.
Is it any good?
This made quite an impression when it first came out in 1987. It takes place in the children's fiction favorite locale to examine the cruelty of mankind; summer camp. It has the kind of grit shown in another well-known cruelty-in-camp novel; "Bless the Beasts and Children." But what sets it apart from others in its genre is the careful tenderness of the relationship between Howie and Laura, a deeply emotional relationship that never becomes sexual. And it is finally that bond, portrayed with great delicacy and beauty by the author, that becomes the most meaningful part of their harrowing experience.
Some young readers are frustrated by the ambiguous ending, even as they revel in the children's ongoing defiance of a hostile world. Unlike many survival stories, the main characters are not lost in a wilderness, but are eking out their hunted existence at the edges of civilization, though Howie is mightily tempted to try to disappear into the woods and never be found. With glancing commentaries on the many and varied relationships between and among children and adults, the author gives readers much to ponder and discuss.
From the Book:
"Where can we go?" she said finally.
The boy shrugged. He had an idea, a picture really, of them camping out in the pine woods around the lake. Nobody knew where they were, but they were there, living like Indians. ...
"I wish we could just disappear," he said finally. The girl was watching him. "They could look for us and couldn't find us. They'd be wondering what happened, but they would never know."
Other choices
More Trouble at Camp
Slot Machine by Chris Lynch
Bless the Beasts and Children by Glendon Swarthout
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place by E. L. Konigsburg
Parents and kids say
All Reviews
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