When Jeff Comes Home - Catherine Atkins

Heartbreaking story of boy freed after kidnapping.

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Common Sense rates it
4
Read the book?
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Book details
  • Author:Catherine Atkins
  • # of pages: 231
  • Publisher:Penguin Putnam Inc.
  • Original Publication Date: 08/15/2004
  • Genre: Fiction - Contemporary Fiction
  • Hardcover: $17.99
  • Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: 12 up
  • Read Aloud: 13+
  • Read Alone: 13+

Parents need to know

Parents need to know that this book is less about the kidnapping and molestation than about the emotional aftermath. Parents will have to decide whether they want their kids exposed to this. Though not graphic and done as tastefully as possible given the subject matter, it's still very powerful and disturbing.

Families can talk about how difficult it is for Jeff to heal after his ordeal. Why can't he just put it behind him? How does the public reaction -- the media, his peers -- make it more difficult for him? A discussion about staying safe is always worth having, though it's hard to see how anyone could have prevented what happened to Jeff.

Message

Social Behavior:

Jeff's behavior is erratic and disturbing, though for good reason. The behavior of his schoolmates toward him after his ordeal is appalling.

Consumerism:

Several products mentioned by name.

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

Some teen drinking.

Violence

Jeff is kidnapped at knifepoint. He is whipped and forced to perform sexual acts to get food and stay safe, none of which is described.

Sex

Jeff has been molested, though no details are given other than kissing. When Ray makes Jeff take off his wet clothes, Ray has a "bulge" in his pants. Nude photos of Jeff are found.

Language

Occasional use of four-letter expletives, and various epithets for homosexual.

Common Sense says

What's the story?

Reviewed by Amy Brotman

Three years ago Jeff was kidnapped at knifepoint. Now, at age sixteen, his kidnapper has let him go, and Jeff returns home, but a new ordeal is just beginning. His kidnapper, Ray, though gone and eventually arrested, still controls his life. Jeff lives in a world of fear and self-loathing that causes him to push away his family and friends.

Hounded by the media, taunted by his schoolmates, and pressed for information by the police and FBI, Jeff at first refuses to talk about it, and denies that Ray did anything to him. But when Ray is arrested, nude pictures of Jeff are found, and Ray claims their relationship was consensual.

Is it any good?

4

Though there's no shortage of stories about kidnapped teens (going all the way back to Robert Louis Stevenson), molestation of the victim, and its aftermath, have seldom if ever been dealt with, especially not in a novel for children. Atkins here treats the more lurid aspects of the story delicately and carefully, and reserves the hard-hitting realism for Jeff's emotional state after his return, which she handles without a misstep or false moment, though the absence of a therapist seems odd.

The major characters, especially Jeff's father, little brother, and best friend, are three-dimensional, each with failings to match his strength and patience. But in the end it is Jeff whose feelings ring truest. Though the climax of the book comes near the end, when Jeff finally begins to talk to his father, the most powerful moment in the story comes much earlier, when his little brother Brian nags him into playing a game, and Jeff resurrects a nasty version of Staredown that Ray would force him to play. As Jeff sits on the sofa, filled with self-loathing, the horror and empathy his siblings feel over what he has endured is shown clearly when a shaken and tearful Brian immediately apologizes for making him remember it. Moments like that make this book hard to put down -- and hard to forget.

From the Book:
"Okay," I said, "Let's go. The first one to break the stare gets slapped."

"That's not how you play," Brian protested weakly, a nervous smile flickering across his lips.

I nodded. "Right. But see, that's how Ray plays. If you break the stare, you get slapped. You get slapped every time you look away from him, so the only way to win is never to look away ..."

Brian was crying now, cringing, his arms trembling as he tried to keep them by his sides to avoid touching me. The tension drained out of me and I felt weak again, weak and so disgusted with myself I wanted to die.

Other choices

Also by Catherine Atkins
Alt Ed

Returning from Kidnapping
The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
Father's Arcane Daughter by E.L. Konigsburg
Who is Eddie Leonard? by Harry Mazer
Twice Taken by Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter
The Kidnapping of Suzie Q by Martin Waddell
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
Counterfeit Son by Elaine Marie Alphin

Parents and kids say

All Reviews

There are 1 reviews.

5


Posted on 01/10/07 by Sara Kid contributor, age 17

OMG! I felt like I was there! This Book Drew Me In....

Wow this is the first real book that i really got into and i Loved It! I was so drawn to all of the drama and good plots and wow the way that this book had a good naration and the fact that also the narrator who was this 16 yr old had thoughts so you could relate and know exactly what he was thinking so it basically put you in his thinking shoes WOW GREAT GREAT BOOK!i'm gonna go and buy a copy of it or sumthin it was that good.....

Adult Reviews

There are 0 reviews.

There are no adult reviews.

Kids Reviews

There are 1 reviews.

5


Posted on 01/10/07 by Sara Kid contributor, age 17

OMG! I felt like I was there! This Book Drew Me In....

Wow this is the first real book that i really got into and i Loved It! I was so drawn to all of the drama and good plots and wow the way that this book had a good naration and the fact that also the narrator who was this 16 yr old had thoughts so you could relate and know exactly what he was thinking so it basically put you in his thinking shoes WOW GREAT GREAT BOOK!i'm gonna go and buy a copy of it or sumthin it was that good.....
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