Starscape: A Tom Doherty Associates Book (Paperback), ISBN 0-765-34228-6
When my manager at Walden Books insisted that I pull all the copies of Jumper from the shelves for questionable content and box them up to be returned to the publisher, I couldn't help but move this book to the top of my reading pile.

I knew nothing about the book except its title, which immediately suggested that Jumper dealt with suicide. That proved to be the very least of it. Jumper begins, on the very first page, with an act of child abuse. Thankfully, before Davy Rice's drunken father does considerable physical damage to his motherless son, Davy teleports -- for the first time -- from the scene of the crime to his favorite spot, the public library. Davy makes his second "jump" to escape homosexual rape at the hands of a perverted trucker who offers the runaway a ride. And all this occurs by page eight!

Reading on, I became wrapped up in the story of a 17-year-old runaway who survives life on the street. I don't agree with some of Davy's methods of survival, but the situations he found himself in didn't offer many choices. In the fantasy world Steven Gould creates, I see Davy's actions as plausible and possible. As a result, alongside Davy, I enjoyed an exciting adventure filled with romance, mystery, tension and a satisfying ending.

Now, for the worst part -- the plot includes an integral act of terrorism. In the wake of 9/11, the terrorism scenes and an instance of jumping off the top of the World Trade Center in a murder/suicide attempt (although fictional and written in 1992) prove hard to digest.

While readers may find Jumper controversial in many aspects (as well as upsetting), that doesn't eclipse the fact that Steven Gould took an unbelievable act and wove it into a compelling and worthwhile story.

Lynne Remick

Lynne Marie Pisano is a freelance writer, poet, book reviewer, SCBWI Metro New York LI Critique Group Coordinator and Co-Chair of the Long Island Children's Writers and Illustrators. She lives in New York with her husband Michael, her son Kevin and a daughter named Kayla, and Dante, a Schipperke.

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