The Last Harvest

Gr 9 Up—Clay Tate, high school quarterback and descendant of one of the six founding families of Midland, OK, was a local hero. Then he found his father dying on the neighbor's barn floor. Clay has spent the subsequent year tilling the wheat on the family farm, taking care of his mother and two sisters, and trying to forget. But Midland won't let go of Clay so easily. The Preservation Society, a cultlike club comprised of the other five founding families, has begun pressuring Clay to take his place on the council, while everyone else in town is asking Clay to reclaim his role on the school football team. Clay doesn't know what to do, and now that he's seeing unexplainable things, he doesn't know whom to trust. Clay's deep distrust of the Preservation Society; his ache for his former love, Ali; his dependence on his guidance counselor, Miss Granger; and an ever-increasing paranoia take center stage in a tense and suspenseful drama. The story line is sometimes predictable, with clichéd plot turns, and the depictions of Midland's reverential view of high school football and general alcohol and drug abuse are a little heavy-handed. But a final twist brings the tale to a strong conclusion. Mature language is included, as are sexual situations and references to satanic worship.