Available:*
Library | Material Type | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Ginter Park | Book | FICTION SHUSTER | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Main Library | Book | FICTION SHUSTER | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
National Book Award * Golden Kite Award Winner * Six Starred Reviews
A captivating novel about mental illness that lingers long beyond the last page, Challenger Deep is a heartfelt tour de force by New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman.
Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench.
Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior.
Caden Bosch is designated the ship's artist in residence to document the journey with images.
Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head.
Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny.
Caden Bosch is torn.
Challenger Deep is a deeply powerful and personal novel from one of today's most admired writers for teens. Laurie Halse Anderson, award-winning author of Speak, calls Challenger Deep "a brilliant journey across the dark sea of the mind; frightening, sensitive, and powerful. Simply extraordinary."
Reviews (2)
Horn Book Review
This audiobook version of Shustermans novel about one young mans battle with mental illness reinforces both the disorienting confusion of the disease and the tenuous hopes for its treatment. Caden Boschs first-person account of his experience plunges listeners into his hallucinations, where a pirate ship full of outsized characters appears. Narrator Curran-Dorsano voices each member of this motley crew with consistent distinction, imparting a powerful sense of their seeming reality. His attention to detail is masterful. We hear echoes of the ships parrots singsong cadence in the real-world Dr. Poirots speech, for example, as Caden increases his grasp on what is and is not real. And while such character work is impressive, Curran-Dorsanos deeper achievement comes in the straightforward voicing of Caden himself, imparting his vulnerability and his resilience with unvarnished honesty. thom barthelmess (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Fantasy becomes reality in an exploration of mental illness based partly on the experiences of the author's son, who is also the book's illustrator. For 14-year-old Caden Bosch, his gradual descent into schizophrenia is a quest to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest place on Earth. In an internal reality that's superimposed over Caden's real lifewhere his behavior slips from anxiety to hearing voices and compulsively obeying signagean Ahab-like captain promises riches in exchange for allegiance, while his parrot urges mutiny for a chance at life ashore. Shusterman unmoors readers with his constant use of present tense and lack of transitions, but Caden's nautical hallucination-turned-subplot becomes clearer once his parents commit him to Seaview Hospital's psychiatric unit with its idiosyncratic crew of patients and staff. However, Caden's disorientation and others' unease also make the story chillingly real. Except in the heights of Caden's delusions, nothing is romanticizedjust off-kilter enough to show how easily unreality acquires its own logic and wit. The illustrator, who has struggled with mental illness himself, charts the journey with abstract line drawings that convey Caden's illness as well as his insight. When the depths are revealed with a dream-logic twist and Caden chooses an allegiance, the sea becomes a fine metaphor for a mind: amorphous and tumultuous but ultimately navigable. An adventure in perspective as well as plot, this unusual foray into schizophrenia should leave readers with a deeper understanding of the condition. (author's note) (Fiction. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
