Books with author Edward Bloomfield

It's 2001 and zombies have taken over Tom's town. Meth zombies. The drug rips through Blackwater, PA, with a ferocity and a velocity that overwhelms everyone.It starts small, with petty thefts of cleaning supplies and Sudafed from the supermarket where Tom works. But by year's end there will be ruined, hollow people on every street corner. Meth will unmake the lives of friends and teachers and parents. It will fill the prisons, and the morgues.Tom's always been focused on getting out of his depressing coal mining town, on planning his escape to a college somewhere sunny and far away. But as bits of his childhood erode around him, he finds it's not so easy to let go. With the selfless heroism of the passengers on United Flight 93 that crashed nearby fresh in his mind and in his heart, Tom begins to see some reasons to stay, to see that even lost causes can be worth fighting for. Edward Bloor has created a searing portrait of a place and a family and a boy who survive a harrowing plague year, and become stronger than before.

Candlemas Eve begins in 1880 in the north of England, in the smoke and fire of the Industrial Revolution. Jack and Celeste Potter find themselves orphaned in a world that is unforgiving to the poor and the friendless. As a result, they embark on separate journeys--Jack emigrating to America to make his fortune, and Celeste staying behind to survive as best she can. Candlemas Eve is the prequel to Edward Bloor’s Summer of Smoke, a novel describing America’s tumultuous race riots in the spring and summer of 1968.Edward Bloor is the author of Tangerine, London Calling, and other award-winning novels for young adults.

James Porter was a freshman in high school in 1967-1968. That was the year when his all-white soccer team got assaulted by the fans and players of all-black teams. It was the year when angry, disenfranchised blacks went out of their way to “bump” whites on the streets of Trenton, New Jersey. And finally, in the spring and summer, it was the year when all hell broke loose. Trenton and over 125 other American cities exploded into rioting, burning, and looting following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Seven years after those riots, James returns to attend a high school reunion. He hopes to re-connect with old friends, and some enemies, and with the girl who got away. He re-lives the events of that summer, long buried in his memory. He searches for answers to what really happened to his family, to his classmates, and to his city behind the smoke and confusion of that tumultuous time in American history.

BY 2035 THE RICH have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer, and kidnapping has become a major growth industry in the United States. The children of privilege live in secure, gated communities and are escorted to and from school by armed guards.But the security around Charity Meyers has broken down. On New Year's morning, she wakes and finds herself alone, strapped to a stretcher, in an ambulance that's not moving. She is amazingly calm - kids in her neighborhood have been well trained in kidnapping protocol. If this were a normal kidnapping, Charity would be fine. But as the hours of her imprisonment tick by, Charity realizes there is nothing normal about what's going on here. No training could prepare her for what her kidnappers really want . . . and worse, for who they turn out to be.

Roberta Ritter has been waiting for a knight in shining armor for most of her humdrum life. She’s a doormat, a nobody whose mother died a few years back, a smart girl who wastes her afternoons working in a failing arcade in a failing shopping mall. And then a Crusader arrives. . . .Only this Crusader is a virtual reality war game, one that does a booming business at the arcade, despite--or perhaps because of--the controversy over its racism and violence.Roberta’s boring life explodes. Onetime friends become bitter enemies, strangers reveal themselves as allies, and Roberta discovers the truth about her mother’s death. In uncovering what’s real and not just virtually real, Roberta learns to stand up for herself--and, maybe, to become her own crusader.

George and Kate are promised the finest education when they transfer to the Whittaker Magnet School. It boasts the highest test scores in the nation. But at what price? Their new school's curriculum is focused on beating standardized tests; classes are held in dreary, windowless rooms; and students are force-fed noxious protein shakes to improve their test performance. Worst of all, there seems to be a demon loose in the building, one whose murderous work has only just begun. A bitterly funny satire about the state of modern education from the author of Tangerine and Crusader.

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was hopping along through the woods one day, wondering what sort of an adventure he would have, and he was thinking about Alice in Wonderland and what a queer tea party he had been to the day before, when the Mad March Hare smashed the Hatter's watch because the hands always stayed at 5 o'clock tea time."If anything like that is going to happen to me today," said the bunny uncle to himself, "I ought to have brought Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy along, so she could enjoy the fun. I'll just hop along and if anything queer starts I'll go back after her."So he went on a little farther, and, all of a sudden, he saw, lying on the woodland path, a piece of cheese."Ha!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder if Jollie or Jillie Longtail, the mouse children,[Pg 24] dropped that out of their trap? I'll take it to them, I guess."He picked up the bit of cheese, thinking how glad the mousie boy and girl would be to have it back, when, all at once, he heard behind him a voice asking:"Oh, did you find it? I'm so glad, thank you!" and from under a bush out stepped a cat wearing a large smile on the front of its face. The cat stretched out its claw and took the bit of cheese from Uncle Wiggily."Oh! Is that yours?" asked the bunny gentleman, in surprise."It's Cheshire cheese; isn't it?" asked the cat."I—I believe so," answered the bunny. "Yes," he added as he looked and made sure, "it is Cheshire cheese.""Then, as I'm the Cheshire cat it's mine. Cheshire cat meet your cheese! Cheese, meet your cat! How do you do? So glad to see you!" and the cat shook paws with the cheese just as if Uncle Wiggily had introduced them."I dare say it's all right," went on the bunny uncle."Of course it is!" laughed the cat, smiling more than ever. "I'm so glad you found my cheese. I was afraid the March Hare had taken it for that silly 5 o'clock tea party. But I'm glad he didn't. At first I took you for the March Hare. You look like him, being a rabbit.""My birthday is not in March, it is in April," said Uncle Wiggily, bowing."That's better," spoke the Cheshire cat. "You have done me a great favor by finding my cheese, and I hope to be able to do you one some day.""Pray do not mention it," spoke the bunny uncle, modest-like and shy, as he always was. He was just going to ask about Alice in Wonderland when the cat ran away with the cheese."Never mind," thought Uncle Wiggily. "That was the beginning of an adventure, anyhow. I wonder what the next part will be?" He did not have long to wait.All of a sudden, as he was walking along[Pg 26] through the woods, sort of leaning on his red, white and blue striped barber pole rheumatism crutch, there was a rustling in the bushes and out popped a whole lot of hungry rats."Ah, there IT is!" cried one rat, seizing hold of Uncle Wiggily by his ears."Yes, and just in time, too!" cried another, grabbing the bunny by his paws. "Into our den with IT before the mouse trap comes along and takes IT away from us!"With that the rats, of which there were about five hundred and sixteen, began hustling Uncle Wiggily down a hole in the ground, and the first he knew they had him inside a wooden room in an underground house and they locked the door, taking the key out.Uncle Wiggily in Wonderland, Wonderland Alice, Cheshire Cat, Gryphon, Caterpillar, Humpty Dumpty the Red Queen

Martin Conway comes from a family filled with heroes and disgraces. His grandfather was a statesman who worked at the US Embassy in London during WWII. His father is an alcoholic who left his family. His sister is an overachieving Ivy League graduate. And Martin? Martin is stuck in between--floundering.But during the summer after 7th grade, Martin meets a boy who will change his life forever. Jimmy Harker appears one night with a deceptively simple question: Will you help? Where did this boy come from, with his strange accent and urgent request? Is he a dream? It's the most vivid dream Martin's ever had. And he meets Jimmy again and again--but how can his dreams be set in London during the Blitz? How can he see his own grandather, standing outside the Embassy? How can he wake up with a head full of people and facts and events that he certainly didn't know when he went to sleep--but which turn out to be verifiably real?The people and the scenes Martin witnesses have a profound effect on him. They become almost more real to him than his waking companions. And he begins to believe that maybe he can help Jimmy. Or maybe that he must help Jimmy, precisely because all logic and reason argue against it.This is a truly remarkable and deeply affecting novel about fathers and sons, heroes and scapegoats. About finding a way to live with faith and honor and integrity. And about having an answer to the question: What did you do to help?

It starts small, with petty thefts of cleaning supplies and Sudafed from the supermarket where Tom works. But the plague picks up speed, tearing through his town with a ferocity and velocity that surprises everyone. By year's end there will be ruined, hollow people on every street corner. Meth will unmake the lives of friends and teachers and parents. It will fill the prisons, and the morgues.Tom has always been focused on getting out of his depressing coal-mining town, on escaping to a college somewhere sunny and far away. But as bits of his childhood erode around him, he finds it's not so easy to let go. When home and family are a lost cause, do you turn your back? Or are some lost causes worth fighting for?