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    Breakout
    Breakout
    Breakout
    Ebook483 pages4 hours

    Breakout

    By Kate Messner

    4/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Told in letters, poems, text messages, news stories, and comics--a series of documents Nora collects for the Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule Project--Breakout is a thrilling story that will leave readers thinking about who's really welcome in the places we call home.

    Nora Tucker is looking forward to summer vacation in Wolf Creek--two months of swimming, popsicles, and brushing up on her journalism skills for the school paper.

    But when two inmates break out of the town's maximum security prison, everything changes. Doors are locked, helicopters fly over the woods, and police patrol the school grounds.

    Everyone is on edge, and fear brings out the worst in some people Nora has known her whole life. Even if the inmates are caught, she worries that home might never feel the same.

    A Mighty Girl Best Book of the Year
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJun 5, 2018
    ISBN9781681195377
    Breakout
    Author

    Kate Messner

    Kate Messner is the award-winning author of more than a dozen other books for young readers, including Over and Under the Snow, Up in the Garden and Down in the DirtOver and Under the Snow, Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, and How to Read a Story. When she's not writing, she loves spending time outside. Kate lives in New York with her family.

    Read more from Kate Messner

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    Reviews for Breakout

    4/5

    36 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I wanted to love it, and I think I would if it had been half as long. The premise -- escaped prisoners! -- sounds like something is going to happen at some point, but nope. I appreciate what it's doing about white suburbanites wrestling with race, but it just does so waaaaay too slowly for most kids (and me). Read Alex Gino's You Don't Know Everything, Jilly P! instead.
    • 3/5
      Breakout presents a realistic story about three girls who live in a town where a prison looms large. Nora wants to be a journalist when she grows up. Two events happen that enable her to practice her skills. The town creates a time capsule and the students have to input five entries for future residents of the Wolf Creek. Meanwhile two inmates escape from the prison. Nora writes way more than five entries, but she details what happens as the search begins and eventually ends. Nora's father is in charge of the prison, so he's always at work. Everyone locks their doors and events must be cancelled for safety, which annoys Nora because she wants to participate in field day at the end of the school year. It may be cancelled if the inmates aren't found. A new girl, Elidee, runs faster than Nora. Nora feels nervous about competing against her--Nora wants to win because the winner throws a water balloon at the principal. Nora moves around town telling what everyone is doing and trying to figure out where the criminals could be hiding.Lizzie, Nora's best friend, hangs out with Nora most of the time. Her grandmother has been having problems, so her mother has been helping her. Lizzie's interests differ from Nora. She submits her thoughts by using a recorder. The conversations are "transcripts" in the book. She does not enjoy running like Elidee and Nora do nor does she harbor ideas about being a journalist, but she helps them by doing entries and running.Elidee represents the newcomer. She and her mother have moved to Wolf Creek to live close to Elidee's brother, who is now incarcerated in the prison. Elidee misses New York. Wolf Creek seems boring in comparison. Elidee is also black, so she is often treated differently than Lizzie and Nora, which shows a new side of the town to them. She also participates in writing entries for the time capsule.Several people have told me they loved this book. I didn't. It does teach you a lot--about what it's like to be a minority in a white town, the demographics of inmate vs. general population, what types poetry one can write, etc. I found the book repetitive. Nora would write her article, then Lizzie might have a comment about the same event. I felt like I was reading the story multiple times before the plot advanced. It's definitely written for a younger audience, but I do think the meaning behind the book resonates with truth. It's worth reading just to learn about part of our society.
    • 5/5
      BREAKOUT by Kate Messner is a fast-paced story exploring issues of social justice and perspective.When inmates from a local prison escape, Nora Tucker’s summer vacation is disrupted as her family, friends, and the entire community deals with the impact of the breakout. Of particular note is the author’s use of comics, poems, text messages, letters, and news stories to move the story forward. The book concludes with an author’s note and wonderful book list for young readers.Librarians will find this book popular with students who enjoy books containing documents as part of the storyline. The story’s balance of suspense and social themes will broaden the appeal. The novel’s focus on multiple perspectives will appeal to teachers wishing to use this book for class discussions.Published by Bloomsbury on June 5, 2018. ARC courtesy of the publisher.
    • 5/5
      My read today:Wow!The creativity of the writing including letters, texts, news articles, comics, etc.A town with middle schoolers uniting during a prison escape, researching, and realizing racism within their town.The young people use their writing to promote change. #MGReadathon
    • 4/5
      You think your small town is pretty cosy and a pretty wonderful place to live in; then two prisoners escape from a penitentiary and the town shows its true colors. I did not care for the format of the book - told in letters and texts and post-its but the story was interesting. I enjoyed Elidee's charactor. She's strong and grows into a more confident person - she rocks!
    • 4/5
      A small town changes when two prisioners escape and tramatize a community into learning about themselves. Lots of writing of letters to express their feelings
    • 5/5
      Set in a small town in New York State, BREAKOUT is a wonderful middle-grade read that explores unjust judgments, fear, and self-awareness. I love how the novel is a composition of the artifacts included in the school’s time capsule; letters, newspaper articles, and first-hand accounts of the weeks in which this small town was essentially in lockdown because two inmates escaped the federal prison located in the small town. The main characters had a personal connection to the prison. A dad that was warden to a brother that was an inmate. Through this stressful time and self-reflection, growth was made. Change was made. BREAKOUT would be a perfect read aloud for grades 5 and up. A must-have for school and classroom libraries.

    Book preview

    Breakout - Kate Messner

    Also by Kate Messner

    The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z.

    Sugar and Ice

    Eye of the Storm

    Wake Up Missing

    All the Answers

    The Seventh Wish

    The Exact Location of Home

    For Ella

    Contents

    Breakout

    A note from the author . . .

    For younger readers

    For upper elementary & middle school readers

    For teen readers

    July 30

    Dear Library Board,

    Enclosed is my contribution to the Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule Project. This folder includes my letters as well as public documents and things I’ve collected from friends and family members, shared with permission. I labeled everything with Post-its and added notes so you don’t get confused. When I collected this stuff, I didn’t know if I’d submit it all, but sometimes you need to hear a lot of points of view to get the whole story. Journalists have to pay attention to things like that.

    Altogether, I think these documents tell a true and honest story of this June, which is what you said you wanted. You have my permission to include all these things in the time capsule, but you don’t have my permission to pick and choose only some of them. That’s the deal.

    When you started this project, you probably thought you’d end up with a lot of stories about everybody eating Popsicles and swimming in the creek. But that’s not what you’re getting. Because this summer was different.

    Sincerely,

    Nora Tucker

    Friday, June 7—

    Morning announcements from Mr. Simmons (He’s our middle school principal.)

    Just FYI . . . I don’t know if you future Wolf Creek people still do this, but our school puts a transcript of the morning announcements online for students who are hearing-impaired. I think that’s cool, and also (bonus!!) it means I can print announcements for the time capsule without typing them up myself.

    Friday, June 7

    Good morning, Wolf Pack! Please stand for the pledge to the flag.

    (Pledge)

    As the school year winds down, Mr. Russell would like to remind everyone that library books are due by the end of the day unless you’ve made prior arrangements.

    Language arts teachers will share a special project with you today—a request from the public library for students to contribute to the community time capsule project. We’d love to have all our middle school voices represented.

    The drama club end-of-year party is after school today in the auditorium until 3:30.

    The final chess club tournament begins Monday. See Ms. Baker in room F-4 to sign up.

    Wolf Creek Middle School field day will be a week from today, on June 14. Like always, we’ll have the Wolf Pack cookout, the giant soccer field Slip ’N Slide, and the Mad Mile Race. Despite my lobbying to have a different prize for this year’s winners, our water-balloon-the-principal tradition remains in place. To register for the race, see Mrs. Roy in the gym.

    Happy birthday to Rory Burke, Patrick Fountain, Jessica Maynard, and Mrs. Howard (in the cafeteria). And let’s have a warm Wolf Creek welcome for a new seventh-grade student joining us today, Elidee Jones.

    Our quote of the day is from Thomas Edison. Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

    That concludes our announcements.

    Friday, June 7—

    Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule Project for Ms. Morin’s English class

    SUMMER HOMEWORK: Submit at least five items for the Wolf Creek Community Time Capsule, which will be opened in fifty years. These may be letters you’ve written to future residents or other pieces you’ve written that you wish to include. Anything you’d put in your writer’s notebook will work, too. Ideas might include:

    Letters

    Personal narratives

    Descriptions

    Conversations

    Poems

    Jokes (must be appropriate)

    Student-written news articles, editorials, comics

    Lists

    Notes to yourself

    Hopes, dreams, wishes, and fears

    Master plans and evil plots

    Other ideas of your own!

    SUBMISSION #1: A letter to future Wolf Creek residents about how you see your community and what’s on your mind as we finish the school year. This is a quick note typed on the classroom computers, due at the end of class. I’ll provide feedback on this one to make sure you’re on the right track.

    SUBMISSIONS #2–5, due July 30: More letters, or whatever you’d like from the list above, either handwritten or typed. Turn these in to Mrs. Raymond at the public library no later than July 30. She’ll keep a list of students who turn in all five entries, and those students will start eighth grade with extra credit.

    Friday, June 7—

    Letter from Elidee Jones

    Dear future Wolf Creek residents,

    I’m supposed to write you this letter for an assignment, but I just got here, so I don’t have much to say about your town yet. The mountains are pretty.

    It seems strange to be starting a new school and finishing the year at the same time, but I guess that’s what happens when your mom gets a new job at the beginning of June. It took us six hours to drive here with the U-Haul trailer.

    My old school was a lot different. It was in New York City, so it was a lot more diverse than this one. There was more to do there, too. The last day I went to school back home, my after-school drama group got to take a field trip to a Broadway play about Alexander Hamilton, America’s first Secretary of the Treasury. That sounds boring, but it wasn’t. None of us had been to a Broadway show before because it’s super expensive. But I guess some old rich lady liked this show a lot and donated a bunch of money so middle and high school kids could see it, too. So we could appreciate the poetry. And we did. We all loved it. Especially the rap battles the Founding Fathers had in their cabinet meetings. They were dressed in old-fashioned clothes, all up in each other’s faces, spitting rhymes like Drake and Jay Z. The truth is, I don’t even like rap music much, but the songs in this play were amazing. After the show, my friends Alaya and Rachel started planning a freestyle contest for lunch next week. I was all over that, already making up lyrics in my head on the subway back to school. Only then I remembered I wouldn’t be there.

    It’s nice here, though. It sounds like the end of the school year will be pretty good. Field day seems fun. I’m looking forward to making new friends and being an 8th grader at Wolf Creek Middle School next year. It’s not where I was hoping to go to school, but it seems like it will be okay.

    I hope things are going well for you, whatever you’re doing in the future.

    Sincerely,

    Elidee Jones

    Welcome, Elidee! I’m glad you’re in my class. I understand what it feels like to be missing friends. I love Wolf Creek, but I still miss my college friends. It sounds like we have a love of poetry in common, too! One of my favorite poems is The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. You should look it up. Sometimes, students like to make up their own versions, and I bet you’d be good at that.

    My students all got poetry notebooks when we were celebrating National Poetry Month in April. I know you weren’t here then, but there are some extras on the shelf by the door if you’d like to take one to write in over the summer.

    —Ms. M.

    Friday, June 7—

    Letter from Nora Tucker (that’s me!)

    Dear future Wolf Creek residents,

    Ms. Morin said we should tell you how we see our community and what’s on our minds as we wrap up the school year. I’ll start with the first part.

    HOW I SEE MY COMMUNITY:

    I see my community as a pretty cool place because it’s safe and friendly, and everybody knows everybody. That’s my opinion. If you get a letter from my older brother, Sean, he’ll tell you it’s boring and that he can’t wait to get to college. But you can make up your own mind about that, I guess. Sean’s biased because his girlfriend Emily moved to Syracuse to go to SU, where Sean wants to go the year after next, even though my parents think he ought to stay put and go to Wolf Creek Community College. Sean says that is the absolute last school on his list. He liked it better in Wolf Creek before Emily left. All he does now is work to save money for Syracuse.

    Even though fifty years is a long time, I doubt Wolf Creek will have changed much by the time you open this time capsule. Probably everybody still works at the prison and goes deer hunting in November and lines up on Main Street for the Fourth of July Parade, right?

    WHAT’S ON MY MIND:

    Field day! I’ve been waiting forever to be in 7th grade so I can run the Mad Mile. I’m under seven minutes now—I’ve been practicing so I can throw water balloons at Mr. Simmons. That’s the prize. The fastest girl and fastest boy each get to throw three water balloons, and Mr. Simmons isn’t allowed to run or duck or anything. He just has to stand there and get water-ballooned. That’s been the seventh-grade field day prize forever. My mom got to water-balloon her principal, Mr. Snyder, when she was in seventh grade, and my brother Sean got to water-balloon him, too, right before Mr. Snyder retired. I’m going to be the first Tucker to water-balloon Mr. Simmons.

    Sleepover! My friend Lizzie is coming over for a sleepover tonight. We’re going to watch movies and eat her grandma’s minty chocolate brownies, which are the best. They taste like a York Peppermint Pattie. I’ll try to get the recipe to put in the time capsule. You’ll love them!

    Voldemort! (You know who that is, right? From the Harry Potter books? You must.) He’s on my mind because he’s on my little brother Owen’s mind ALL THE TIME. Dad made the mistake of reading Harry Potter aloud to him, and now Owen won’t go to bed until somebody checks the bathroom, the linen cupboard, the hall closet, Owen’s bedroom closet, behind his desk, and under his bed. Mom used to do it, but Owen thought she did a crummy job and didn’t look carefully enough, so I am the designated Voldemort-checker now. I haven’t found He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named yet, but I’ll keep you posted. Owen’s birthday is next Saturday, and I got him a wand, which I hope will make him feel braver.

    My Alcatraz book that I’m writing! It’s like this book we read in English class last year, only different. I loved that book, and not just because it has a prison superintendent’s daughter as a character, which you don’t see very often. I could relate to her because my dad’s always busy with inmates at Wolf Creek Correctional Facility, just like her dad is always busy at Alcatraz with Al Capone and everybody. I’ve read that book four times. (In fact, I just remembered I still have it signed out and I’m not sure where it is, but I need to look because they just said on the announcements that Mr. Russell wants his books back.)

    Anyway . . . back to my own Alcatraz book. The truth is, I haven’t worked on it in a while because it got hard right after I started the first chapter. I had all this great research, but when you’re trying to figure out something that happened in history, it’s like a big, messed-up puzzle. You have to look at all kinds of different documents and reports and interviews, and half the time, people say totally different things about what happened. So you have to piece everything together to figure out the real deal. That’s why my book has been so tricky. I might work on it more this summer, but maybe not, because I need time for . . .

    THE WOLF CREEK MIDDLE SCHOOL GAZETTE!: I want to be editor next year, when I’m in eighth grade. I’m trying to get Lizzie to do it with me, but she doesn’t like news all that much. She likes math, though, so I’m going to see if she’ll make some of those infographics like they have in the big-city newspapers. Maybe she can do some kind of newspaper comedy, too. Lizzie wants to be a comedian someday, if she doesn’t end up being a mathematician. I want to be a journalist who covers all the exciting breaking news stories. We don’t get many of those in Wolf Creek, unfortunately. Usually, our local paper runs stories about missing cats. But a journalist has to be ready, just in case. I’m planning to write news articles for most of my entries for this project. That way, opening your time capsule will be like reading a newspaper from the past!

    The last thing on my mind is lunch. Because English is almost over and I’m so hungry that even school grilled cheese sounds good. Maybe by the time you read this, there will be better school lunches here, but I wouldn’t count on it.

    Your friend from the past,

    Nora Tucker

    This is a great letter, Nora! I think future Wolf Creek residents will appreciate your reflections, and I *LOVE* that you’re going to include newspaper articles. Have fun reporting!

    —Ms. M.

    PS I found a copy of that Alcatraz book left outside on a bench by the track this week and took it to the office Lost and Found. Check there!

    Friday, June 7—

    Letter from Lizzie Bruno

    Dear future Wolf Creek people,

    I don’t know what this town will be like when you’re reading this, but right now, it’s kind of boring and could stand to lighten up a little, so I present to you . . .

    LIZZIE BRUNO’S TOP TEN THINGS TO DO IN WOLF CREEK

    (If you think I’m being sarcastic about some of these, you’re right.)

    10.Attending Wolf Creek Middle School—This is not to say that everything about our school is great. I’m pretty sure they serve better lunches at the prison, and our annual fitness test in gym is a special kind of punishment. (We have to try a pull-up every single year, even when there’s no hope whatsoever.) But school still makes the Top Ten List because most of our teachers are okay. Also, once a month, they have a staff workday, so I get to stay home eating chocolate pretzels, watching Elizabeth Chin comedy videos, and making bar graphs and Venn diagrams.

    9.Shopping at Joe’s Mountain Market!—They really do have an exclamation point on the sign. I don’t think they mean for it to be ironic. I guess when you’re the only place to pick up milk and bread, you get to use whatever over-the-top punctuation you want. Also, the market is on our walk home from school and they have Swedish Fish, so . . .

    8.Field day—Field day would rank higher without the Mad Mile, which should be called the Miserable Mile. I’ll never understand why people run when they’re not being chased. But the cookout and soccer field Slip ’N Slide are cool, so field day still makes the list.

    7.Sleepovers at Nora’s house—This would also be ranked higher if it weren’t for Nora’s mom, who won’t let us watch PG-13 movies because Nora’s birthday isn’t until August and her mom says no, that’s not actually close enough.

    6.Walking down our beautiful Main Street—perfect for those who like a view of the prison while they’re out shopping at the exclamation-point market or Bob’s Hardware.

    5.The public library—For real, because Mrs. Raymond lets us do whatever we want with the teen room, so there are beanbag chairs and video games in there.

    4.The Wolf Creek Firefighters’ Carnival and Cookout—This is pretty much my favorite day of the summer. We hang out watching water ball fights and eating fried dough. Fun fact: this used to be called the Firemen’s Carnival, but when the old chief retired and Mrs. Labray got the job, she said it was time for that sexist carnival name to retire, too.

    3.The Fourth of July Cookout

    2.The Founders Day Cookout

    (We are really into cookouts here)

    1.Recording conversations on my new WhisperFlash Z190 digital audio recorder—Grandma got it for me for my birthday because she heard an NPR interview with a comedian who said she learned all about how people talk and comedic timing by recording regular conversations and listening to them, sometimes even writing them down. I’m bringing the recorder to Nora’s this weekend. It can store up to fifty hours of audio, and it’s so small that you can have it turned on, recording in your pocket. Maybe I’ll include a flash drive of audio recordings for this time capsule project so you can hear our important conversations about what brand of hot dog they should get for the Fourth of July Cookout.

    For the record, I’m not joking about this. Hot dogs are on the town council agenda next week. They’re meeting to vote, and I know . . . the suspense must be killing you. But it’s time for lunch, so I have to go now.

    —Lizzie Bruno

    What a fun list, Lizzie! I think future Wolf Creek residents will appreciate your sense of humor. I’m afraid that if you want to include recorded conversations in the time capsule, you’ ll need to type them up. We have no way of knowing if your flash drive will still be readable fifty years from now. Also, when you share recordings, please be sure to add a paragraph with your own reflections, so you’re not just writing other people’s words. The future wants to hear from you!

    —Ms. M.

    Friday, June 7—

    Note posted outside the gym (I took this photo on the day of our practice run, when I still thought this whole time capsule was going to be about field day and Popsicles.)

    Friday, June 7—

    Text messages between Lizzie & Nora

    Just FYI . . . I used our computer’s messaging app to print out these text messages. In the olden days, people sent handwritten letters, and reading those now tells us a lot about what life was like back then. Texts are kind of our version of letters, so I decided to include them, even though they’ll probably seem old-fashioned by the time you read this. You probably communicate telepathic ally or something. Good luck saving that for your extra-credit time capsule project.

    NORA: Omg who moves to a new school 2 weeks before classes end?

    LIZZIE: I saw the list outside the gym and knew you’d freak out

    NORA: I beat my best time by like 30 seconds and she was soooooo far ahead

    LIZZIE: Tomorrow’s newspaper headline.

    NEW KID SPEEDS INTO TOWN, DESTROYS TUCKER

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