FICTION/YOUNG READERS

A Tunnel in the Pines
by Lucia Greene
                                                                  For ages 9 and up.
It’s the last week of school before summer vacation. Best friends Andrew and Wills realize they’ll have to come up with a plan to avoid getting sucked into the same old stuff their parents sign them up for every year, like soccer or computer camp. This summer, they want adventure. So they start a club with some neighborhood kids, adopting Andrew’s Darwinian science project as their guiding mission after being forced to accept Wills’ overbearing older brother Taylor, and his hulking sidekick, Strat, as members. But something’s wrong with Andrew, and the test to determine who will join their club seems to be rapidly spinning out of control.  When outsmarting the older boys proves challenging, and the club’s underground initiation goes haywire, surviving it tests the strength of both friendship and brotherhood.
   Praise for A Tunnel in the Pines

“Greene ably presents the contradictions and difficulties of growing up from a boy’s point of view. The way that Wills navigates his competing instincts is realistic and moving. A skillful exploration of a tween boy’s coming-of-age.” – KIRKUS REVIEWS

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If you were lucky enough to grow up near a grove of pine trees, as I was in northernmost Maine, then you know that magic can happen under those boughs on any given night.  And so it is with A Tunnel in the Pines.   School is out, so what better way to beat the summer's boredom than a secret club?  But first, you'll need a lot of earthworms, a full moon and owls hooting.   Wait a minute.  Earthworms?  
                                      ----Cathie Pelletier, author of The Summer Experiment
Lucia Greene grew up by a river in Connecticut, lived by the harbor in South Freeport, Maine, and finished her childhood on a farm in Poland Spring, Maine. A lifelong reader and writer, she edited children's books, had a career as a journalist for People magazine, and is currently a freelance writer. She and her husband have three grown children and live in Newburyport, Massachusetts.