Reviewed by Dianne for Teen Lit Review

Description: Joey Campbell endures survivor’s guilt when he and his best friend Maureen are the only two to survive a disastrous fire that swept through their history class during the last month of his high school freshman year. To complicate matters, other students accuse him of setting the fire since he “knew” to get out of the classroom. He becomes the target of taunts of “murderer” and suffers rocks and garbage being hurled at his house until his father resorts to building a fence around the property. He retreats, becoming a prisoner in his own house and only releasing his emotions in a journal and through his art work.

Review: Although this novel seems to target young teens, the writing and dialogue tend to be more appropriate for a much younger audience, yet I would not recommend this to anyone younger simply because of the subject matter. The protagonist is fourteen years old, but I had a hard time thinking of him as being any older than eleven or twelve.

I found this to be a rather disturbing story, with descriptions of Joey’s dead classmates as they were brought out of the burning building.

Rating: 4 for mild language

Positive: Joey and Maureen hold a fierce loyalty to each other. Joey works through his past experiences and struggles with the memory of his mother’s death in a fire in the recent past to emerge a stronger and more stable person. He eventually is able to convince others through his artwork that he had nothing to do with the fire. In the end he has grown strong enough to go back to his same high school.

Spiritual Elements: None

Violence: Most of The violence takes place in the form of harassment and mental cruelty. There is one incidence where Joey is surrounded by a number of students who have plans to beat him up (or worse).

Language: The history teacher swears, using the word “h*ll” a couple of times, which Joey remarks on…that his mother would not approve.

Sexual Content: None

Other: Joey mentioned that he tried pot once. It made him sick and he avoided it after that. Joey did sneak cigarettes from time to time.

Recommendation: There is nothing so wrong with this that I would say to avoid it, but there isn’t anything compelling that would make me suggest it to a young reader either. If a young teen was dealing with the issue of survivor’s guilt, it might be a compelling read, but the mixed issues of age appropriateness might make it difficult.

Title: One of the Survivors, Author: Susan Shaw, Primary Audience/age group: Middle School, Genre: Realistic Fiction, # Of pages: 199, Publisher: Margaret K. Elderberry Books, Year of Release: 2009, Part of a Series? No, Rating: 4 out of , Recommend? Yes, but with reservations