Infinite Sky

There's lots of teen-on-teen fighting, including graphic descriptions of incidents wherein a knife or brick is used as a weapon. There's also some backstory about a man battering his wife and pulling her by the hair.

Warm feelings grow between teens in a budding romance. The teens kiss and hug. Another teen girl says she wants to be the first in her class to have sex, but she doesn't have a boyfriend.

"F--k" is used in anger a few times. Other potentially offensive words include "crap," "scrotum," "s--t," "prick," and "dickhead."

Teens and adults drink beer and hard liquor (vodka, whiskey), and smoke cigarettes. A 13-year-old girl is given hot cocoa with brandy during a hard emotional time.

Parents need to know that Infinite Sky is a young adult novel about teens coping after their mother leaves their father to see the world. Iris, 13, and her brother, Sam, 15, are bereft, and their father, Thomas, feels lost and inept when they act out. Thomas drinks excessively, as does Sam. Thomas also takes out his frustration on the Irish travelers who have settled in a lot adjacent to the family's farm; he and others are prejudiced against travelers and want them evicted. Tensions in the family, and between families, result in extreme violence, including fistfights and the use of a knife and a brick as weapons. Adults and teens smoke cigarettes and use some foul language ("s--t," "f--k," "crap," "scrotum," "dickhead," "prick"). Teens kiss in the book; the very mild sexual activity is one of this novel's most innocent and endearing qualities.