The first novel of local writer, Michael Harmon, Skate takes place in Spokane, WA and is about the troubles of a skater-punk kid name Ian. His mother is a drug addict and is never home, so Ian is left to take care of his little brother, Sammy. As you can imagine, this gets very difficult for Ian to deal with and he eventually gets into some trouble at school. He decides to run away to find his father who left them when they were young. He has an address in Walla Walla and that’s all he knows about him, but it’s his only chance at a normal life. So he and Sammy skate out of town to Walla Walla.

After a long, tiresome, and awful journey they finally make it to Walla Walla to find out that the address they have is from the State Penitentiary.

That’s all I’m going to say about the story. You’ll just have to read the book to find out what happens 🙂 .

I loved this book. All through the book I was hoping and hoping that things would get better for Ian and as the book progressed things just kept getting worse. He kept making the wrong decisions and I wanted to shake him and say, “don’t do that!” But as the book progressed he learned from his mistakes. Ian is basically a good kid who wound up in a bad situation that he had no control over. In the end he learns that he has to face his problems to make his life better. “Skating” away isn’t going to work. He has to face his problems head-on.

Cross posted at Spokane Public Library Youth Services book review blog