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Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book does a great job of swith the challenges of being a boy in an all boys' boarding school in the 1980s. Alex Stromm is tortured about the drowning death of his friend. He and his friends decide to cover it up since they were drinking at the time but did their new English teacher who happened upon them afterward see anything? The Plan is something Alex struggles with throughout the whole book; at times hating himself (did he do enough to save his friend, did he run fast enough)and then he alternates with wanting to continue at the Birches Prep School in order to become a writer and that might mean ruining some lives. Miss Dovecott is a young female teacher around all these boys and she works very hard to help Alex in writng and creating poems but also tries to get information from him about the drowning. Alex fantasizes about her; yet he really cares about her. It was definitely a struggle for Alex each and every day after the drowning. It was a little unnerving with all the details about Moby Dick (I really can't remember the story) and jumping back and forth in time. This book will appeal to the male student who likes to read about friendships, sports and all boys schools.

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