A stupid car accident causes the death of an innocent girl. Amazingly, the girl's mother requests that the teenage drunk driver travel to the four corners of the United States and create whirligigs with the girl's picture on them. The young man's journey leads to growth and self-discovery. ( )

A teenage boy is responsible for another's death in a drunk driving accident. He sets up a whirligig in all 4 corners of the US as atonement. The book is more about the healing for the boy and the mother of the accident victim than about drinking and driving. This would be a great book for discussion. ( )

It took me a little bit of time to warm up to the book and the shifts in perspective, but eventually I warmed up to the various stories. Brent Bishop crashes a car and has to face the consequence of his actions. ( )

Brent Bishop, high school junior, just wants to fit in. He thinks the party at the home of one of the popular kids at his new school will be his big chance, but the evening could not have turned out worse. Brent makes a fatal mistake, and must set out across the country to right the wrong he has committed. Like the whirligigs Brent is commissioned to create, in honor of a girl he never knew, Paul fleischman brings together four unrelated characters - with their own stories of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and peace - as they are each affected in their own way by Brent's work. The main story, of course, is that of Brent and his journey toward redemption and peace. Fleischman demonstrates well how our actions - good or bad, deliberate or accidental - can have the power to change someone's life. This multi-layered story is thought-provoking and beautifully told from the perspective of the different characters, with times and places shifting in each chapter. ( )

Brent Bishop wants to end the pain, the humiliation he suffered at a party. As he drives drunk, he lets go of the wheel of his car. The next thing he knows, he’s killed someone else instead of himself—18-year-old Lea Zamora, the driver of another car. Thanks to his parents’ wealth, Brent avoids the worst of the possible consequences. Yet he cannot live with the guilt, so he arranges for a meeting with Lea’s parents.

Full review:
http://www.twentybyjenny.com/teenBook... ( )