Golden Boys

In Golden Boys, Australian author Sonya Hartnett, winner of a Printz Honor for Surrender, wriggles deep into the psyche of a few children. In this working-class suburb of yesteryear, the neighborhood kids travel in packs, and being a child is like being "dropped on a strangers' planet, forced to accept that these are the ways of this world." Childhood is "like being in rough but shallow water, buffeted, dunked, pushed this way and that." Growing up is "an unbuckling of faith."

Hartnett's hypnotic story, told in shifting perspectives, begins with the "golden boys," 12-year-old Colt and his trusting younger brother Bastian, sons of the movie-star-handsome, yet unsettlingly "try-hard," disturbingly generous dentist Rex Jenson. Most recently Rex has brought home a BMX bike for his kids, and, in a humiliating game, makes them guess what color it is before he'll hand it over. Although there is some action--rambling bike rides, scrapes with a bully, a father's drunken rampages and grisly moments aplenty--the brilliantly expressed private thoughts of Colt and neighbor-girl Freya are what really propel this literary novel. As the salty, credible Aussie banter keeps the brutal narrative buoyant, Golden Boys expertly reflects the ferocity, rage, dread, shame, guilt and dark understanding with which children view the flawed adults around them. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness