• Age: 11 to 16
• Grade: 6 to 9
• Reading age: 11 to 16

Tara's got it made - good grades, cool parent's, a weekend job, and a boyfriend, Ron. Then there's her friend Janet who lives on the street when she can't get on with her parents. Along with other street kids, Janet panhandles for money and spends nights at an abandonned building called Hell's Hotel. Ron wants the world to know that it's adults who force the kids on to the streets - parents, teachers, police - and he asks Tara to help him publish his opinions in his alternative newspaper, The Rage. As Ron confronts authority, Tara begins to question his motives. Then, quite suddenly, many of the pieces of her perfect life start to crumble, including her stable, happy home. Her grades slip, her friends desert her and her mother leaves town. Where will Tara turn for help.

No one has a clearer view of Atlantic Canada's literary endeavours over the past twenty years than Lesley Choyce. He is the founder of the literary journal Pottersfield Portfolio, and the publisher of Pottersfield Press. He has edited several fiction anthologies and has been the in-house editor of many books from Pottersfield Press including Making Waves, a collection of stories by emerging authors from Atlantic Canada. He is the author of more than fifty books in genres ranging from poetry and essays to autobiography, history and fiction for adults, young adults, and children. Among his recent books are the novels The Republic of Nothing, World Enough, and Cold Clear Morning, and the story collection Dance the Rocks Ashore. Choyce is the writer, host, and co-producer of the popular literary show television program, Off the Page with Lesley Choyce, which is broadcast across the country on Vision TV. He also teaches in the English department of Dalhousie University in Halifax and is leader of the rock band The Surf Poets.

Lesley Choyce's profile page