 Todd Strasser (aka "Morton Rhue") reading from his novel Boot Camp in the High School of Langenau/Germany | |
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Genre | Young adult novel |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing |
Publication date | 02 May 2007 (1st edition) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 235 (Hardcover edition) |
| ISBN | 1-4169-0848-X |
Boot Camp is a young adult novel by Todd Strasser about a boy who is subjected to physical and psychological abuse when his parents send him to a boot camp.
A fifteen-year-old boy named Garrett is picked up by a pair of bounty hunters and sent to a boot camp in upstate New York called Lake Harmony. Upon his arrival, he learns that his parents have sent him to the facility because he refused to stop having intimate relationships with his former math teacher that was eight years older than him, Sabrina, along with other things including staying out too late, not being athletic enough, and occasionally smoking weed. Garrett is an incredibly bright and clever kid, although he tends to miss school as he thinks that he does not need to attend daily to uphold his grades. His parents are at most, distant. Garrett does not believe he belongs at Lake Harmony, but he is not allowed to leave until he has admitted his "mistakes" and conforms to the facility's standards of behavior. Staff members are authorized to use "any force necessary" to alter his behaviour, including physical and psychological abuse.
After attempting to talk his way out with no success, he realizes escape is his only option. He escapes Lake Harmony with two friends, Pauly and Sarah, after using chemicals to start a fire. They reach the Canada–US border to escape from legal recapture, and their pursuers' boat begins to sink. He lets his friends out on the other side of the border, and then rescues his pursuers, who bring him back to Lake Harmony, where he is beaten senseless repeatedly. The director announces that all campers are being demoted, based on the privilege system they use, and to blame Garrett, so he is beaten yet again by the campers. Ultimately, he is "reformed". He begins to believe in the treatment, feeling no remorse when those around him are abused. When his mother comes to pick him up with an investigator, the investigator asks if he was beaten. He breaks down and says that he was, but deserved it. It is possible that these events caused him to suffer from PTSD, as he appears to suffer from a mental breakdown when admitting what has occurred.
Kirkus Reviews wrote "Strasser explores the intriguing topic of militaristic boot camps, described as a secret prison system with 4,000 to 10,000 teens, but he undermines his effort with implausible characters and tedious violence." [1] where as Publishers Weekly found "Strasser paints his protagonist as heroic, sympathetic and rational (“The product Lake Harmony delivers is the child you always knew you had... not the one you got stuck with”), and when he is ultimately broken—bodily and spiritually—the tragedy is all the more profound. Strasser offers no easy answers, and nimbly navigates a host of moral gray areas." [2]
Holes is a 1998 young adult novel written by Louis Sachar and first published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book centers on Stanley Yelnats, who is sent to Camp Green Lake, a correctional boot camp in a desert in Texas, after being falsely accused of theft. The plot explores the history of the area and how the actions of several characters in the past have affected Stanley's life in the present. These interconnecting stories touch on themes such as labor, boyhood and masculinity, friendship, meaning of names, illiteracy, and elements of fairy tales.
Todd Strasser is an American writer of more than 140 young-adult and middle grade novels and many short stories and works of non-fiction, some written under the pen names Morton Rhue and T.S. Rue.
Memed, My Hawk is a 1955 novel by Yaşar Kemal. It was Kemal's debut novel and is the first novel in his İnce Memed tetralogy. The novel won the Varlık Prize for that year, and earned Kemal a national reputation. In 1961, the book was translated into English by Edouard Roditi, thus gaining Kemal his first exposure to English-speaking readers.
Daddy Day Camp is a 2007 American children's comedy film directed by Fred Savage in his feature film directorial debut. The film stars Cuba Gooding Jr., with a supporting casts of Lochlyn Munro, Richard Gant, Tamala Jones, Paul Rae, and Brian Doyle-Murray. It is the second installment in the Daddy Day Care film series, and Gooding's last widely released film before he shifted to several direct-to-video films in five years until 2012.
Boot Camp, also released in the UK as Punishment, is a 2008 psychological thriller film written by Agatha Dominik and John Cox and directed by Christian Duguay.
In the United States, a teen escort company, also called a youth transport firm or secure transport company, is a business that specializes in transporting teenagers from their homes to various facilities in the troubled teen industry. Such businesses typically employ a form of legal kidnapping, abducting sleeping teenagers and forcing them into a vehicle. Teen escort companies in the United States are subject to little or no government regulation and commonly result in permanent trauma.
The Sea of Monsters is an American fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology written by Rick Riordan and published in 2006. It is the second novel in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series and the sequel to The Lightning Thief. This book chronicles the adventures of thirteen-year-old demigod Percy Jackson as he and his friends rescue his satyr friend Grover from the Cyclops Polyphemus and save Camp Half-Blood from a Titan's attack by bringing the Golden Fleece to cure Thalia's poisoned pine tree.
Impulse is a 2007 American young adult novel in verse written by Ellen Hopkins. The novel digs into the lives of three troubled teenagers as they try to work their way out of the hospital by getting through what put them there.
I Want to Go Home! is a children's novel by Gordon Korman, first published in 1981. It was republished, as with most of Korman's older books, in 2004 with a new cover and updated text.
Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids is a non-fiction book by Maia Szalavitz analyzing the controversy surrounding the troubled teen industry. The book was published February 16, 2006, by Riverhead Books. Szalavitz focuses on four programs: Straight, Incorporated, a copy of the Straight Inc. program called KIDS, North Star wilderness boot camp, and the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools. She discusses the background, history and methodology of the troubled-teen industry, including techniques drawn from attack therapy and Synanon. She uses first-person accounts and court testimony in her research, and states that no evidence exists proving that these programs are effective. The book also includes advice for parents and an appendix with additional resources on how to get responsible help for teenagers.
Romiette and Julio is a young adult novel by Sharon Draper, published in 1999 by Atheneum Books. It is an updated version of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Many of the characters in Draper's novel closely parallel those in Shakespeare's play. The plot updates the family feud between the Capulets and Montagues to reflect modern racial tensions between African-Americans and Hispanics in the United States. The book received mixed reviews.
After Ever After is a book written by Jordan Sonnenblick. It is a continuation of the Alper family storyline from Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, focusing on Jeffrey Alper's life after his cancer went into remission. Sonnenblick chose to continue the storyline after receiving an email from a social worker who told him "that the story was far from finished".
Seamus McGraw is an American journalist and author.
Located on 150 acres on Cedar Lake in Chester, Connecticut, Camp Hazen YMCA provides youth camping for over 1500 boys and girls each year from throughout the state. Group camping includes over 6000 participants annually. Camp Hazen YMCA serves youth from throughout Connecticut, New England and many states around the country. Each summer, Camp Hazen YMCA is also home to campers and counselors from more than 25 different countries. Campers come from all socio-economic backgrounds, and range in age from 5 to 18. Over 800 campers were provided with financial assistance in 2009. These funds, over $205,000, were provided by individuals, foundations, businesses and service clubs.
Bunks is a 2013 Canadian fantasy horror zombie comedy television film broadcast by Disney XD and produced by Fresh TV. It includes actors Dylan Schmid, Atticus Mitchell, Leigh Truant, Aidan Shipley, and more. It was broadcast on October 27, 2013. It was filmed in Kenora, Ontario. It premiered on Disney XD in the US on June 16, 2014.
Redwing is a children's fantasy novel by Canadian author Holly Bennett. It is a Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication, and is recommended for ages 12–18.
Out of Darkness is a historical young adult novel by Ashley Hope Pérez, published September 1, 2015 by Carolrhoda Lab. The novel chronicles a love affair between a teenage Mexican-American girl and a teenage African-American boy in 1930s New London, Texas, occurring right up to the 1937 New London School explosion.
The Hidden Oracle is a fantasy novel based on Greek and Roman mythology written by American author Rick Riordan. It was published on May 3, 2016, and is the first book in The Trials of Apollo series, the second spin-off of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. The book and its cover art by John Rocco were first announced in 2015. It has been published in hardcover, audiobook, ebook, and large-print editions. The Hidden Oracle has been translated into 19 languages from its original English.
Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began is a 2016 memoir by Alex Cooper with Joanna Brooks.
Brant Lake Camp is a sleep-away summer camp located in the Adirondack Mountains in Brant Lake, New York.
