Don't Shoot!

"This is a rich and provocative story." — School Library Journal

Fourteen-year-old Chase Riley has just moved with his parents from Columbus, Ohio, to a farmhouse in the country, but it may as well be on another planet. For starters, there’s a plague of cicadas, but that’s nothing compared to the awesome appearance of deer in the woods — or strapped to hunters’ cars. Chase seeks refuge at his computer, blasting off droll commentary, until a freak accident involving his own dog changes everything. And that’s when he begins devising The Plan.

A Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year

A West Australian Young Readers Book Award Reading List Selection

“From: To: Date: 10 August 10:38pm Subject: You win Dear Jeremy -O{O-, (I'm making smileys for everybody so I can enter them into my e-mail shortcuts. I think that will work. This one OK for you? You don't even have to read it sideways. I didn't put in the braces #, but I can if you want. For sure!) You were the first one to write back so you win! I forgot to think of what the prize is, but you're the winner. You're so right about Mallory. She loves it out here and that's because she DRIVES. So as much as she's here, like weekends, she says, "Oh, I wish we could have spent my first seventeen years in the country." Mallory is obviously part cicada. (I don't know what her other part is.) She's been commuting fifteen minutes to work in Lexington all summer. She leaves before the cicadas really start up and hauls her butt home right before adry when they've shut up again. She has no idea. I gotta go. I just wanted to answer your e-mail before bed. I'm using this one for me: q:L) Or me when Mom insists that I wear my cap the right way: d:--/ Or me - like now - when someone is yelling for me to get offline so they can make a phone call: q;-- q;-@ (me yelling, "ALL RIGHT!") CHASER by Michael J. Rosen. Copyright (c) 2002 by Michael J. Rosen. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.”

From:
To:
Date: 10 August 10:38pm
Subject: You win

Dear Jeremy -O{O-,

(I'm making smileys for everybody so I can enter them into my e-mail shortcuts. I think that will work. This one OK for you? You don't even have to read it sideways. I didn't put in the braces #, but I can if you want. For sure!)

You were the first one to write back so you win! I forgot to think of what the prize is, but you're the winner.

You're so right about Mallory. She loves it out here and that's because she DRIVES. So as much as she's here, like weekends, she says, "Oh, I wish we could have spent my first seventeen years in the country." Mallory is obviously part cicada. (I don't know what her other part is.) She's been commuting fifteen minutes to work in Lexington all summer. She leaves before the cicadas really start up and hauls her butt home right before adry when they've shut up again. She has no idea.

I gotta go. I just wanted to answer your e-mail before bed.

I'm using this one for me: q:L)

Or me when Mom insists that I wear my cap the right way: d:—-/

Or me - like now - when someone is yelling for me to get offline so they can make a phone call: q;—-|

q;-@ (me yelling, "ALL RIGHT!")

CHASER by Michael J. Rosen. Copyright (c) 2002 by Michael J. Rosen. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.

Michael J. Rosen is the acclaimed author, editor, and illustrator of some forty books for both adults and young people. Many are inspired by his lifelong interest in and experience with animals, whether as a college zoology major, an amateur bird watcher, a dog trainer, or the founder of a granting program to help animal humane societies. Of CHASER: A NOVEL IN E-MAILS, he says, "When I moved from the major city where I'd lived most of my life to a rural community, the changes were monumental. And I often thought, What if I hadn't actually chosen to live here? I tried in this novel to think more deliberately about the complicated (and always teetering) balance we try to achieve, living, as we all do, amid an ever-diminishing natural world."

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