Hideout by Watt Key - ADVISABLE

Key, Watt Hideout, 311 pages.  Farrar Straus Giroux, 2017.  $24.  Language: PG (10 swears, 0 ‘f’); Mature Content: PG (some drug talk); Violence: PG-13.

When his family moved to Mississippi, Sam, 12, made what he thinks was a huge mistake in choosing his first friend.  Now he is the target of bullies and he just wants to spend his summer in peace, in his boat on the swamplands, and forget all about the disaster that is his life.  In wanderings, however, he finds a boy, Davey,  who is eking out an existence is an abandoned summer shack.  He knows better than to keep secrets from his police chief father, but this time he decides not to tell – with almost disastrous results.

I think I like Terror on Bottle Creek the best of Key’s books so far.  This one is no slouch when it comes to delivery a moral question and imminent danger; Davey’s brother is involved in many illegal schemes, which impact the boys’ chances of survival.

MS – ADVISABLE.  Cindy, Library Teacher