Catch Me If I Fall
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Twins Ashleigh and Aiden have always promised to protect each other, but after an accident on a school trip, Aiden starts behaving strangely. Are they just growing apart, or is something more sinister going on?
In a future Australia ravaged by climate change, twins Ashleigh and Aiden Delatour have always promised to protect and be there for each other, no matter what. Their privileged upbringing and loving, wealthy parents leave them with little to worry about. But when Aiden is seriously injured during a school trip, the twins’ entire world begins to unravel.
Back home from the hospital, something about Aiden seems different and Ashleigh’s quest to find out why will uncover dark truths about the world they thought they knew, challenge their bond as twins and push how far they are willing to go to keep their promises.
Catch Me If I Fall is a thrilling, timely examination of the possible future of our planet, the true meaning of family and our responsibilities to each other.
Key Text Features
chapters
dialogue
epilogue
explanation
prologue
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3
Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.6
Describe how a narrator's or speaker's point of view influences how events are described.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3
Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6
Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A dystopian future Australia provides the backdrop for this smart speculative read revolving around the profound love of a twin brother and sister. Twelve-year-old siblings Aiden and Ashleigh Delatour live privileged existences in Sydney, where they attend an elite private school and have the best of everything courtesy of their tech-mogul mother, an AI engineer. "Siblings are there to catch you when you fall," they are taught, representing a vital bond in a climate change–ravaged world in which many people suffer and die beyond enclave walls. Quiet Aiden, who's "a bit of a loner," has a genetic condition that impedes digestion; first-person narrator Ashleigh, quick to brag about their expensive home, struggles to make friends. After he sustains a grave injury while kayaking, Aiden begins to change in radical ways, becoming argumentative around an increasing awareness of the larger world's grim realities. Though Ashleigh questions their relationship, Aiden's awareness of the duo's privilege eventually causes Ashleigh to open her eyes, culminating in a deftly handled conclusion that compassionately examines the intersection of ethics and familial love. Jonsberg (A Song Only I Can Hear) creates a timely, disturbingly plausible future of haves and have-nots that examines mature concerns through a savvy middle grade viewpoint. Ashleigh and Aiden have black hair and pale skin. Ages 9–12.
