Center Line

To escape their abusive father, five brothers take to the road

Shawn and his brothers sit around the kitchen table, eating dinner and kidding around. They’re just like any other teenagers having a good time—until a groan comes from the living room, and the boys go dead silent. Their father is waking up, and he is angry. When Dad finds out that one of Shawn’s brothers scratched the car, he flies into a rage, slapping his son around until the boy has no tears left. It’s a horrifying scene—and one they’ve watched a thousand times before.
 
That night, Shawn makes a decision. He’s running away, and he’s taking his brothers with him. They set out on the open road with only as much as they can carry, hoping to find a better life. But as the journey becomes more and more arduous, Shawn realizes that he and his brothers will have to rely on one another if they’re going to survive.

“Devastatingly accurate.” —School Library Journal on Face the Dragon
 
“An engrossing, romantic story in which dreamland and awakening mesh and a strong message is conveyed.” —Booklist on The Spirit Window
 
“Honest, intelligent . . . Sparkling.” —Publishers Weekly on Piano Man

Joyce Sweeney is the author of fourteen books for young adults. Her novel Center Line won the first-annual Delacorte Press Prize for a First Young Adult Novel. Many of Sweeney’s works have appeared on the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults list. Her novel Shadow won the Nevada Young Readers’ Award in 1997, and Players was chosen by Booklist as a Top 10 Sports Book for Youth and by Working Mother magazine as a Top Ten for Tweens. Headlock won a silver medal in the 2006 Florida Book Awards and was chosen by the American Library Association as a Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Sweeney also writes short stories and poetry and conducts ongoing workshops in creative writing, which have so far produced forty published authors. She lives in Coral Springs, Florida, with her husband, Jay, and cat, Nitro.