First published 2013
Standish Treadwell has mismatched eyes and struggles with words on a page. The other kids call him slow, but Standish sees what the "train-track thinkers" miss. He lives in a brutal regime where asking questions brings danger. When a football flies over the forbidden wall, everything changes. Standish and his best friend Hector decide to retrieve it, crossing into territory the Motherland wants hidden. What they discover on the other side shatters everything they believed about their world. The regime has been lying about a celebrated moon landing, and the truth threatens to destroy them both. Standish must choose between safety and exposing a deception that reaches the highest levels of power. In one hundred brief chapters, he tells his story in his own voice, revealing how an unlikely hero can change everything when he refuses to look away.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, coming-of-age, young-adult
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Motherland
Period: 20th-century
288 pages · Hardcover · Candlewick
Content warnings: violence