Eva Blackstone – författare

A twelve-year-old boy, convinced he’s cursed, flees his foster home in Illinois to find a voodoo priestess in New Orleans and runs into the arms of Hurricane Katrina instead.

Bobby Thompson wants to be cursed. And not your everyday, mad-at-your-neighbor jinx, but a big, fat, hairy curse. The kind of curse that will explain away all the bad in his life. When Flyn, his foster home friend, does a tarot card reading, she dubs him hoodoo cursed, and claims the only one capable of breaking it is her voodoo priestess aunt. But her aunt lives in New Orleans, four states away, and Bobby can’t bear to leave his unconscious mom behind.

Unfortunately, Bobby's curse puts everyone around him in jeopardy. Old Mrs. Reed dies when he touches her, the neighborhood bully lands in the ER, his foster mom could lose her license, and that fire he accidentally starts . . . He has no choice. He has to go to New Orleans.

Even with friends, the journey will be tough, especially when the police are looking for them, but Bobby knows a busted curse will mean his mom will wake up from her coma and all the wrong in his life will right itself. The funny thing about curses though, is sometimes they don’t want to be broken, and New Orleans at the end of August 2005 is no place for three kids on the run.

Lexile® measure 620L, Grades 5-7

The future Earth where Nubbin Beck lives is as unforgiving as The Company that runs it. She has never been outside, only peered through a glass barrier at a punishing desert where daytime temperatures boil the blood and monstrous, human-devouring insects dominate the night. Nubbin's family survives in a technology-driven cave community named Hopelight Enclave, one of dozens of enclaves networked and managed by The Company, which came to power after developing a disease-eliminating microchip. Now every man, woman, and child carries a chip, so the Company can monitor the health of its employees, while controlling access to water, food, and other life-sustaining resources.

After her family risks their lives to rescue a stranger from the desert—an ex-Company employee thought to be dead—Nubbin struggles to keep the fugitive hidden in her home. He has plenty say about The Company and its malicious plans for the microchip. If what he says is true, she knows she must warn her friends and their families. Determined to uncover the truth, Nubbin learns that questions are not only prohibited, they can be deadly. And of all the secrets she uncovers, Nubbin herself lies at the heart of the most shocking.

Secrets of Hopelight is the first book of a middle grade dystopian series where humans cling to scattered enclaves, giant lizards roam the wasteland, and a paternalistic corporation rules every aspect of life.