Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"This land was made for you and me." -- Woody Guthrie

"They've all gone to look for America." -- Paul Simon

"'Remember those outlandish lies?' she said, arms crossed as she stared at me across the table.
"'Mom, that was just Win goofing around--'
"'He told that poor student tour guide that you'd been in a coma for three years!'
"'Mom--' I tried to break in, but I could feel the smile pulling at the corners of my mouth.
"'I'm not finished, Christopher,' she intoned. I shut up and let her continue. 'And he wasn't satisfied with just that lie, was he?'
"I sat quietly, unsure if I was supposed to answer this question or not.
"'Um, no, but--'
"'He went on to tell her that he was an orphan refugee from--' She paused, waved her fingers toward me, beckoning the answer.
"'I don't remember, Mom. One of the Stan countries, maybe?'
"But it didn't matter. Now she only wanted to ensure this was as long and painful as possible. 'And,' she said, positively vibrating as she said the words, 'and he claimed to be your adopted brother who'd tutored you to make up for those years of high school you missed during your coma!'
"My father laughed. 'It's not funny, Allen!' Mom said. 'Chris could have gotten a lot of scholarship money at Marshall. And then he would have been close to home instead of going all the way down to Atlanta.'"

West Virginia high school senior Chris Collins has certainly never spent any time in a coma. His recent accomplishments include Eagle Scout, honor society vice president, and an acceptance letter from Georgia Tech.

Chris has known goofball Win (Winston Coggins III) since third grade and the pair have been best friends for the past half dozen years. Win's high-powered, CEO-of-a-polluting-chemical-company father and disinterested mother are nightmare parents ("All Win knew he could do was disappoint them, so he made an art of it.") who have spent the past six years sending him to therapists ("They couldn't figure out what was wrong with their kid, but wouldn't bother to talk to him when they could pay someone else to.").

Win's father has paid off all the right people and twisted all the right arms so that Win, with his mediocre high school grades, has been accepted for the fall into the same Ivy League school as Winston I and Winston II attended in their days.

As high school graduation approaches -- and Chris' mom starts talking about his getting a summer job at Kmart -- Chris hatches a plan for Win and him to spend the summer bicycling across America. (They've both been entering biathlons since freshman year.)

Chris' mom is horrified by the thought of her child taking off like that, but his father -- whose own teen on-the-road dream was left behind when he'd fallen for Chris' mom -- is supportive and insistent that Chris go for it. Win's father doesn't care what Win does, just as long as Win doesn't call for help when he fails.

And so the two friends hit the road:

"Come and take a walk with me through this green and growing land
Walk through the meadows and the mountains and the sand
Walk through the valleys and the rivers and the plains
Walk through the sun and walk through the rain." -- Phil Ochs

"I'd let Win talk me into paying two bucks for the only qualifying tourist attraction in Pepin -- a reproduction of a log-cabin pioneer homestead. The only interesting trivia that Win picked up was that when Pa Ingalls used to slaughter a hog, he'd make a balloon out of the bladder. He was so impressed by this fact that he asked the nervous little old man volunteering in the small gift shop if they kept pig bladders in stock."

But SHIFT is only in part an on-the-road story.

Fifty miles before they will reach the Pacific coast of the state of Washington, Chris gets a flat tire and Win doesn't stop to wait for him. Instead, Win pedals on -- and disappears.

The book actually begins with Chris attending his first week of classes at Georgia Tech and being confronted by an FBI agent who has been strong-armed by Win's dad -- a former classmate -- into investigating Win's disappearance.

Chapters alternate between our following Chris through his first weeks of college (and unappreciated meet-ups with FBI Agent Abe Ward), and our trying to pick up clues on Win's disappearance while following the teens biking together (and redefining themselves) across the country:

"At home neither of us had ever had a girlfriend. But on the road it actually seemed possible. 'Women love us,' Win had remarked one day as we left a Dairy Queen where a cute girl named Shayna had been sneaking us refills on soft-serve ice cream for the last several hours because we made her laugh. "It was true that biking cross-country was a good conversation starter. True that we seemed instantly cool, since we were doing something that everybody wished they could. I saw myself not as all the girls I'd gone to high school with saw me -- that is, one of the two skinny dorks who were always laughing at something stupid. For the first time we were cool, and we knew it."

As a guy who has spent my own share of time trying to peel off the many layers laid on me in my young years -- both at home and on the construction sites -- by my father, I found SHIFT to be an exceptional coming of age story about fathers and adolescent sons. Having always been awed by the breadth and beauty of America, I enjoyed how the bicycle trip provides a stunning and sometimes comical ode to our land. And having instant messaged my own friend since third grade this morning -- to try to figure out the place in Commack, back in the Seventies, that had the baskets of peanuts on the table (and the shells thrown on the floor) -- I love this exceptional and mysterious story of adolescent guy friends.

Richie Partington, MLIS
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