Death Coming Up the Hill

Gr 9 Up—It's 1968, and 17-year-old Ashe Douglas is coping with two devastating wars: one in Vietnam and one in his own home. His parents married young after his mother became pregnant with him and have been sticking it out in a loveless marriage for his sake ever since. The two are fiercely incompatible with fundamentally different beliefs, and Ashe is caught in the middle. Making matters worse are rising casualties in Vietnam and increasing racial and political unrest, all of which have a profound impact on Ashe and those he loves and which threaten to snap the delicate threads holding his life together. Written entirely in stanzas of haiku, the novel is composed of 16,592 syllables, one for each American soldier killed in Vietnam in 1968. This structure, while meaningful, somewhat limits the pacing and full development of the story, and the characters, at times, feel like caricatures of the era. Still, Ashe's emotional struggle is heartbreaking, and his story gives Crowe a thoughtful platform from which to explore issues of family, divorce, patriotism, peace, human compassion, and the tolls of war. It will appeal to fans of novels in verse or to readers with an interest in the Vietnam War, Civil Rights, or American history.—Lauren Strohecker, McKinley Elementary School, Abington School District, PA