Back to School with the Latest Teen Fiction Part 1 of 8: Don Aker's Running on Empty

 With the lazy, hazy days of summer upon on us, young teens can chill out to some great, award-winning YA novels from Canadian writers across the country. Whether kids are growing fairy wings, solving a mystery in between surfboarding the waves, saving cash for their first car, or harbouring secrets, there is something for even the pickiest reader. Here is a sampling of what’s hot off the press on the bookstore shelves.

Running on Empty
Don Aker
HarperCollins Canada Ltd
May 1 2012
272 pages
Paperback, $14.99
Aker won the Canadian Library Associatin's 2008 Honour Book Award for The Space Between.

When Ethan Palmer finally gets together enough cash to buy his own car, he crashes Dad’s Volvo into the garage. All the money he has saved goes toward fixing the car for good ol’ Dad, who also happens to be a lawyer and politician. But Ethan wants a car so badly that he devises another way to raise the capital that could cause even worse problems.

Award-winning Don Aker, resident of Middleton, Nova Scotia, was prompted by a story he heard about parents fronting their son a cash stake to gamble with over the summer in order to make money.

“My ideal reader is male, no question, a teenager who’s struggling under authority, who feels misunderstood by his parents,” Aker said. “The most ideal reader would be the son of a divorced couple.”

“If you ever dreamed of something that you wanted it so badly you could taste it, you could feel it in your hands and have something rip it away from you—that’s what this story is about,” Aker added.