The August 5 by Jenna Helland - OPTIONAL

Helland, Jenna The August 5, 311 pages.  Farrar Straus Giroux (Macmillan), 2016. 

Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: G (mild violence).

All Tamsin’s father asked her to do was to light a candle.  Little did she know that it was meant to start a revolution.  Then she hears that her father has been captured by the authorities and he and the other August 5, all Cottagers who are ruled by the Zunft,  are to go on trial – in a trial that will find them guilty and hang them.  Tommy’s father is a member of the Zunft elite who has designs on ruling the entire country of Aeren.  Tommy knows his father hates him, but doesn’t know any way out of his conforming life until he goes off to school in the capitol city and sees for himself what is really happening.  Each teenager has a role to play in the final showdown between Cottager and Zunft.

Though it lacks in world-building and character development, the plot is a diverting middle read.  It is not a pirate book, despite the cover.  Instead, it is reasonable paced action novel based around a vaguely disguised condemnation of colonialism. 

MS – OPTIONAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher