An action packed blockbuster. Red Dawn meets 1984. The perfect book for kids 10-14, even those who don't like to read.
Jack wants to hang out with his friends but his mom's rules keep him grounded until they wake up to machine gun fire and everything has changed. Foreign soldiers have invaded his hometown cutting off power, shutting down communications, and restricting travel. To make matters worse, he doesn't know if his dad is alive, wounded, captured, or dead. He wants to find him, however, his mother doesn't care, the soldiers are in his way, and the cop who busted him is no help at all.
Feedback from a 92 year old great grandmother: My comment on it, is that Shannon did a wonderful job of writing Thirteen. It was well written, and the description of events was well thought out. It was exciting, scary at times, and sad as well. It's a book worth reading. -- OK so it was my 92 year old grandmother...
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Guest Post:
Being a mother is hard. Being a full time single mother is exhausting. Mothers
work hard everyday and are paid back with those moments of extreme
pride, connection and love from their children. As children grow those
moments get further and further apart while the work gets harder, the
problems bigger, and the judgements from others harsher. Mothers are
filled with guilt, regret, and are their own worse critics. They strive
to be perfect and fail to hit that mark. For
single mothers these emotions are ten fold because they have no one
else to lean on, to look to for help, to share the blame. Everything is
theirs - the exhaustion, the guilt, the pain, the mistakes.... and the
love, pride, & bond.
The hardest job any mother has is letting go and trusting that her children will make the best decisions that they can. That they will have learned from their past mistakes and will succeed in this world. A mother's biggest fear is that she has failed her children.
This is one of the premises in my debut novel, THIRTEEN.
THIRTEEN is about a mom and her son who is becoming a man. It is a struggle for Mothers to let go of their sons and a struggle for their sons to gain the independence and freedoms they want from their mothers. Lots of parents I talk to say that when their child turned 13 it was like the invasion of the body snatchers. One day they were their sweet little boy and the next - OMG who is this kid?
I wrote THIRTEEN
with this conflict in mind, not as a message to teenage boys to cut
their mother some slack or as a message to mothers to give their boys
some growing room. The conflict is just that - a conflict. A common
conflict that everyone goes through as they grow up. In the book neither
side is right, both sides are wrong at times, both sides grow, and both
give a little.
Not
every family dynamic is the same. I explore other families through
Jack's friends. Aiden's mom, Jamie, is a career woman and very different
from Jack's mom, Sydney. We only see a glimpse of Paige's mom, a
secretive odd small lady. Parents of Brock, Ryan, and Jenny are only
mentioned at this point in the series, however, as the series grows each
family will play a role, learn and grow.
I
have always been close to my children, however, since becoming a single
parent 100% of the time, I've become closer with them. It also makes it
harder to let the apron strings loosen because they are all I have.
Letting go and letting them grow up has to be the most painful and most
pride filled part of being a mom. It's one of those wonderful times when
the cost and reward of being a mom is the same thing.
About the Author:
Shannon Peel grew up in Enderby, BC where her family's root run deep. Growing up where television was either non existent or very limited she relied on books & imagination to escape into the world beyond.
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