"Conduct disorder is a psychiatric category marked by a pattern of repetitive behavior wherein the rights of others or social norms are violated.  Symptoms include verbal and physical aggression, cruel behavior toward people and pets, destructive behavior, lying, truancy, vandalism, and stealing."

-- from Wikipedia

"Nights on the Triple R

inside Tavo's trailer

I can feel the stars shift

and I am shifting too

we sleep against black and purple

where protective clouds cover the sky

and I stain the air on my paper

with art pencils and pens

a new self-portrait emerges

Yancy leaning against Shy

alone

in the night

pale moon

invisible desert

reflections on my

buckskin's

beige coat

Tavo's out front

sensitive and seasoned

he must know about life

I paint his eyes

sad and knowing

I think he's

our guide"

Twenty miles outside of Palmdale, California, on the evening of Day Five of running away from home on his beloved horse, Shy;  two days since he got seriously banged up falling off of Shy and into a ravine; and a day after getting robbed in a park of his last nineteen dollars; fifteen year-old Yancy  Aparicio is out of food, out of alfalfa pellets, and seemingly out of luck, when he reluctantly pulls out the scrap of paper and calls the phone number given him by the stranger -- Tavo -- who'd approached him and his horse outside of an IHop and had offered him assistance.  The story that Yancy comes to know -- of Tavo's own life-threatening journey from a village in Mexico where his wife and kids live, to becoming the hard-working hand for a wealthy southern California horse breeder -- will prove inspirational and instructional to this teenager who is the "good" kid in a dysfunctional family. 

Yancy has left home because his well-meaning parents have been unable to control his abusive, mentally disturbed older brother, Will, who has already harmed Shy and now covertly threatens to kill the horse.  Being an aspiring young artist, Yancy writes the complicated story -- of his family's struggle with Will's conduct disorder, and his own life-changing journey away from home -- in a journal format accompanied by his drawings and poems.

There are quite a number of recent children's and YA novels about characters who are not neurotypical, or about a character who has a sibling who is not neurotypical.  For the most part, the mentally-challenged characters in these stories are extremely sympathetic and we can easily come to feel empathy for them and for similar people we may subsequently come to meet in real life.

But author Sandra Alonzo has in some ways crafted a more-challenging tale here, in the sense that it is no easier for us as readers to come to terms with Will's beastly behavior than it is for Yancy to do so.  We so easily share Yancy's terror regarding the things Will has already done in the past (some of which Yancy is the only one in the world to know about) and Will's potent threats.  It becomes clear to us that the parents are an educated, intelligent couple who have been seeking out and trying to utilize expert advice.  So what is to be done in a family situation such as this, and how might readers find empathy for such a scary, cruel, utterly unsympathetic character as Will, even if we recognize that he has been born with a disorder?

Despite such weighty questions, RIDING INVISIBLE is also a fun and spirited adventure with animal love and first kisses and cool drawings, rather than being a one trick pony about evil and despair.  This is a great horse story and coming of age tale that I'll be talking up to seventh, eighth, and ninth graders.   

A few young adult books I love:    

  Thirteen Reasons Why      
   By:  Jay Asher 





















                       
   



      CLAY
    By: David Almond
      
























  
   Crank 
  By:  Ellen Hopkins






















          THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING
     By:  Laura Moriarty