The most horrific moment comes at the beginning: distraught 10-year-old Kip kills another child by dousing him with gasoline and setting him afire. Traumatized, he's sent to a mental ward for serious juvenile offenders (the Loon Platoon), where he's encouraged to examine his feelings and memories. At 14, he reenters the world with a different identity, well aware that his fragile new self and the welfare of his family are built on a lie. Eventually, a girl with her own sad baggage walks into his life. Should he confess his past to her? A cheerleader stepmom and the convenience of finding a soulmate as troubled as he is are hard to swallow, but Kip's halting endeavors to start over are both credible and carefully nuanced. Cynical and smart, Kip is also filled with self-reproach, and despite his crime, he'll earn readers' respect as he struggles to find out who he is and forge a path toward who he will eventually become. Giles' fans won't find outright thrills, but they'll come away with a greater understanding of redemption and forgiveness.

When Kip was nine years old he set a boy on fire, killing him. Now fourteen, Kip and his family are trying to put the past behind them by changing their names and moving away from their Alaska home. The charged premise is intriguing, but Kip's first-person narration is so even-tempered it's hard to believe he actually did what he did.

When Kip was nine, he set Bobby Clarke on fire and then spent the next four years in a mental ward for dangerous juveniles. Guilty of the worst crime on his ward, Kip is the most civilized and intelligent child there, and at 13, he is freed. In a new place with a new name, Kip can start afresh, but he'll never succeed in a normal life if he doesn't learn to manage the crushing guilt of his past. Neither Kip nor any of his psychiatrists tackle the unanswerable question of whether a nine-year-old can be held responsible for cold-blooded murder. Instead, they focus on moving forward, on living a worthwhile life despite an unforgivable past. Guided by Chris Crutcherstyle helpful adults, Kip's journey gains context from the adolescent traumas of the teenagers he meets. This powerful and moving novel of self-discovery gives no easy answers, except inasmuch as it's too easy to have Kip be an entirely sweet, well-intentioned young man, unscarred by anything but guilt after four years of incarceration. Thought-provoking and heart-wrenching. (Fiction. YA)

Giles (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">What Happened to Cass McBride?) returns with another riveting nail-biter. Kip and his father live a spartan life in Alaska until nine-year-old Kip, in a jealous rage, sets a neighboring boy afire, killing him. Put in a psychiatric hospital for criminal juveniles, he is released four and a half years later and moves to Indiana with his father and new stepmother. Kip and his family assume new identities (Kip now goes by Wade). As Wade, who is by all accounts observant, articulate and intelligent, struggles with the sins of his past and finding his place in the outside world, he becomes a star swimmer at the school and even gets a girlfriend, who he nicknames “Absolutely Cutest.” However, one drunken evening, Wade reveals his secret to his friends and soon after he and his family are forced to relocate once more, this time to Texas. There he finds a kindred spirit in his new neighbor Sam, a beautiful girl who considers herself to be “damaged goods” of a sort, as well. This story explores, with sympathy and compassion, the nature of guilt, atonement and forgiveness. As Giles delicately handles these delicate issues and questions (“Do you get to kill someone and say, 'Oh, really sorry now,’ and everything is fine?”), readers should be glued to Wade’s story, hoping for his redemption. Ages 15-up. (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Sept.)

Gr 8 Up-After setting his seven-year-old neighbor in Alaska on fire, Kip McFarland spends four years in a facility for violent juvenile offenders. When he is released at the age of 14, he, his father, and his new stepmother move to Indiana, with new names. For a while, Wade enjoys a normal life. Eventually, however, despite the warnings of his therapist, he sabotages his happiness in a drunken fit of rage. After he reveals his identity, the town turns on him and his family. Now, a coastal Texas town is their final shot at starting over. The cozy community appears to be a perfect haven, but Wade feels compelled to reveal his past to Sam, the beautiful and mysterious neighbor who is winning his heart-and has a story of her own. Will she still accept him once she finds out he is a murderer? This quick read has a compelling story line, but the characters, especially the adults, are at times one-dimensional, with voices that are somewhat indistinguishable from one another. Reluctant readers will be drawn to the story's accessibility, and many teens will be pulled in by the larger questions the novel poses about innocence and acceptance. Despite its flaws, this book will be a hit with Giles's fans.-Lynn Rashid, Marriots Ridge High School, Marriotsville, MD Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

On the afternoon of Bobby Clarke's seventh birthday, nine-year-old Kip McFarland douses Bobby in gasoline, flips open a lighter, "flick[s] the wheel [and] pitche[s] it onto Bobby Clarke." Three days later Bobby Clarke dies, and Kip spends the next three years in an Alaskan lock-up for teenage delinquents. He spends his days reading the classics, working through "tough stuff" with "the Frown" (his therapist), and vacillating between acting like a "normal" teen and spending time in solitary for inappropriate actions. But just as there is a time for every season, Kip's new season begins when he is released back into civilization. He and his family assume a new identity, move to Indiana, and start over again. Meet Wade Madison. This novel rings through the readers head as a "combination book," merging themes of murder, survival, keeping a secret, swimmer becomes golden, and surviving in the Alaskan wild, as seen respectively in Monster by Walter Dean Myers (HarperCollins, 1999/VOYA August 1999); part Gary Paulsen's Hatchet (Bradbury, 1987/VOYA February 1988); part Joyce McDonald's Swallowing Stones (Delacorte, 1997/VOYA December 1997), part Chris Crutcher's Ironman (Greenwillow, 1995/VOYA June 1995), and even part Ben Mikaelson's Touching Spirit Bear (HarperCollins, 2001/VOYA June 2001). Giles's formula for forgiveness is a little too preachy at times; talking about and admitting to your mistakes does not always bring redemption and/or atonement over the course of a few years. But in Kip's case, ultimate redemption comes not in the form of self-forgiveness but in letting go of regret and self-sabotage. And as the title tells readers, it is often what is right behind that can be the most difficult to see.-Ria Newhouse.