LAST CHANCE TEXACO, THE

Childhood Education, Winter 2004/2005 by Pohl, Ann

Hartinger, Brent THE LAST CHANCE TEXACO. ISBN 0-06-050912-0. New York: Harper Tempest, 2004. 240pp. $15.99. In an easy-reading novel format, The Last Chance Texaco offers a snapshot of the lives of vulnerable and dispossessed North American youth who have found their way, along life's thorny path, to Kindle Home, what the youth call "the Last Chance Texaco." The residential program staff are kind, capable, dedicated, underpaid, and overworked. Add a facility manager (armed with a set of policies) who is the villainous embodiment of why group homes often don't help troubled youngsters. Mix in a true assortment of discarded, sloughed off, troubled, in-conflict, abandoned, and abused adolescents of diverse heritages who have found their way into "the system" for all kinds of reasons. Allow a brief time for a string of problems to develop among the neighbors, who are antagonistic toward Kindle Home and its youth.

Hartinger, a former group home staff member, respectfully portrays these youth: their loyalties, hopes, fears, pains, passions, confusion, and so much more. His narrative is woven with an awareness of how race and social class affect the well-being and life outcomes of all children in North America. Hartinger shows these children for what and who they are.

This would be a terrific novel study choice for a teacher who wants to take up a contemporary book that addresses youth social issues with a middle school or higher level class. Read the book first, though, before ordering multiple copies. Some school authorities might have trouble with the author's blunt and honest critique of how "the system" mistreats these kids. Ages 12 up. Reviewed by Ann Pohl, York University, Toronto, ON

Reviewed by Ann Pohl, York University, Toronto, ON