Product Description

Georgie is a damaged young boy acting out his rage and grief on all those who try to help him. In a final attempt to break through to Georgie, his caretakers send him to a new facility and this move is, at last, a catalyst for change. As Georgie struggles to find a place for himself in this new home he meets two people who change his life: A young girl with whom he shares the pain of loss, and a counselor whose patience and tender care help him find and maintain his sense of self.

A raw, emotional and even controversial read, Georgie will strike a nerve with young adult readers. Intense situations and emotions are skillfully handled by this truly talented author.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1964405 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 150 pages

From Publishers Weekly
British author Doyle convincingly traces an orphaned 14-year-old's transformation from a mute and angry boy who shuns human contact to a young man coming to terms with his past and seeking the company of others. Narrator Georgie is about to move from the institution in which he currently lives to a new home in Wales. Readers quickly learn that there's nowhere to go but up: the room he is leaving consists of a bare mattress on the floor (I wreck everything, that's why. Everything they give me, everything I ever owned. I rip it, break it or piss on it). But his quarters at the new home come furnished with a proper bed, stereo and mirror. Through the trust in and companionship with a patient and kind teacher, and the budding friendship with a kindred spirit, Shannon, Georgie gradually begins to reach out and even to speak. Slowly, he uncovers the horrible memories that have caused his retreat into silence. Several chapters from Shannon's point of view offer a bigger picture of the school and the other students. At times, the level of sophistication at which the boy can articulate his feelings seems implausible, however, especially since he was institutionalized at about age seven (for example, when a new orderly comes to deliver his medication and he pulls her hair, I want to lift up her hair and crawl inside, hide from my anger, hide from myself, hide from the me that makes people afraid). But his actions and responses to the world around him are so convincing that readers will likely overlook these narrative inconsistencies. Georgie's uplifting story demonstrates what a few people who genuinely care can do for another human being. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 7-10 Terror, rage, and a total inability to deal with the horrors that life has brought him have left Georgie isolated in the most extreme ways. At 14, he does not speak, cannot read or write, and spends his days alone in a room that has been stripped of anything that he could break or destroy. A new flood of rage occurs when Georgie learns that he is being sent to a different residential home, another change he is ill equipped to handle. Once there, though, he meets Tommo, a teacher with an uncanny ability to reach damaged children, and Shannon, a girl who has begun to heal from the traumas of her own life. The love and acceptance he feels at his new school and permission to grieve for his murdered mother allow him, too, to take steps toward recovery. Narrated by Georgie, with occasional first-person accounts by Shannon, the novel brilliantly takes readers inside a damaged psyche. British terminology and descriptions of the rural Welsh countryside provide an external environment in which the story of an inner journey is rooted. Everyday events such as eating meals with others are fraught with overwhelming emotion in this teen's world, a very real place into which readers are drawn. While both Georgie and Shannon at times sound surprisingly insightful about their problems, on the whole this book is exceptionally well crafted, from its gripping opening to its hopeful conclusion. It's a perfect hand-sell and a book with punch for teens who go for emotionally wrenching fiction. -Faith Brautigam, Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, IL
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 6-10. When 14-year-old Georgie learns that he is moving to a new group home in Wales, he goes berserk--destroying and fouling everything he can, and then huddling in the corner of his room, cold, naked, and filthy. So begins Georgie's narrative of his slow triumph over his traumatic past. It's a remarkable teacher and Shannon, a fellow resident, who save him. Slowly, tentatively, Georgie begins to talk and fight his way to back to sanity, overcoming the terrible trauma he endured as a young child and learning to trust and befriend others. Georgie's voice is utterly real, and his recovery is realistically gradual. Although the end of the story seems a bit too pat, Doyle's debut is a remarkable book that ends in victory. Excellent for booktalking; suggest this to both strong and reluctant readers. Jean Franklin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

A character to get inside your head
Georgie lives in a home for children with mental problems. He trashes his room and his clothes when things get too much. Georgie feels as if his whole world has been taken away from him when he is told he is moving, but the home itself makes him feel worse. Then he is moved to the last place for kids like him and he starts to make a connection with the world again. But somewhere deep inside his mind is the reason he is at the home and he may not be ready to remember.

This book is incredible. Georgie is the kind of character who gets inside your head and under your skin and makes you realise how lucky most of us are. This book has the kind of depth that I found reading "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson and "Cut" by Patricia McCormick. Like both of these other books "Georgie" is a relatively short book but it feels longer because of the intense emotions that are riddled throughout the story.

This book is amazing and I highly recommend it.

Blue Skies at Last!
Georgie Bayliss has lived in a children's institution for several years. He is violent; he smears feces on the walls; destroys his clothes; refuses to leave his room for meals; refuses to attend school or leave the grounds and destroys whatever is in his reach. He is also electively mute and lashes out at others when provoked. In reading Georgie's reasons for attacking his fellow inmates, one can see that his behavior was not without good reason. Why institution staff don't appear to engage him more in activities or understand what he does seems rather odd.

At the start of the book, readers "meet" Georgie in this institution in Wales. Unable to cope with the boy, he is transferred by bus to another institution in the country. Once there, Georgie meets angels. The first angel is a teacher named Tommo who is instrumental in helping Georgie confront his memories of death and loss and provides him with books and a pleasant bedroom; the second angel is a student named Shannon who immediately likes Georgie and wants to reach him. In time, the pair bond and Shannon takes Georgie under her wing. Readers can't help loving the staff at this second institution.

The other children in this home have a multitude of behavioral/mental problems and I like the humane way each child is treated. Tommo really is an angel of sorts and one cannot help but feel encouraged about the nurturing environment in this Welsh institution.