Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
by Matthew Quick
But first he must say good-bye to the four people who matter most to him: his Humphrey Bogart-obsessed next-door neighbor, Walt; his classmate Baback, a violin virtuoso; Lauren, the Christian homeschooler he has a crush on; and Herr Silverman, who teaches the high school's class on the Holocaust. Speaking to each in turn, Leonard slowly reveals his secrets as the hours tick by and the moment of truth approaches.
REVIEWS...
"Books like Quick's are necessary [...] We should be grateful for a book that gets kids, and the leaders they'll become, thinking about the problem now." --The New York Times
"Quick's use of flashbacks, internal dialogue, and interpersonal communication is brilliant, and the suspense about what happened between Leonard and Asher builds tangibly. The masterful writing takes readers inside Leonard's tormented mind, enabling a compassionate response to him and to others dealing with trauma." --School Library Journal (starred review)
"Over the course of one intense day (with flashbacks), Leonard's existential crisis is delineated through an engaging first-person narrative supplemented with footnotes and letters from the future that urge Leonard to believe in a 'life beyond the übermorons' at school. Complicated characters and ideas remain complicated, with no facile resolutions, in this memorable story." --The Horn Book
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