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"The problem was how whenever he turned to any kind of schoolwork, he couldn't seem to think. His brain seized up, it seemed to shut, click! like a great stupid padlock snapping into place."

Luke Leman is about to fail twelfth grade--again. Harassed by the assistant principal, ignored by his father, and worried over by his mother, Luke has slipped into an inner world of his own maki... More

"The problem was how whenever he turned to any kind of schoolwork, he couldn't seem to think. His brain seized up, it seemed to shut, click! like a great stupid padlock snapping into place."

Luke Leman is about to fail twelfth grade--again. Harassed by the assistant principal, ignored by his father, and worried over by his mother, Luke has slipped into an inner world of his own making where concentration is impossible and sleep is elusive. He obsesses over missed assignments and longs for his younger days when the mantle of meeting all his father's high expectations didn't weigh so heavily on his shoulders. To his anxious mother and his girlfriend, Carolyn, he mentions the sound of the night train, the one that comes long past midnight when he should be asleep but never is. When they insist there is no train, Luke worries that he has finally lost his mind. When he goes out one night to find out if the train really exists, he discovers that the sanity he seeks may cost him his life.

Even though it is frustrating that Australian young-adult author Judith Clarke never pinpoints exactly what event precipitated Luke's spiral of failure, she still paints an effectively bleak, evocative picture of adolescent depression. Sympathetic teen readers will immediately understand what Luke is going through and wonder why all the clueless adults in Luke's life either dismiss or ignore his obvious signs of distress. Night Train is an excellent book for use in high school discussions of teen depression. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

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