Books with author Richard Reisz

The Go Between would appeal to teens between thirteen and sixteen. In the story, the protagonist is fifteen, almost sixteen, his girl friend is fourteen, and his sister who plays a major role in the story is thirteen. Parents may also find this book helpful as a springboard for discussion with teen children on risky sexual behavior encountered in the early teen years.Bill McCoy believes that his major winter challenge will be surviving two weeks of being the wrestling "dummy" for Blake Proper. Bill, a sophomore at Lionwood High, is committed to helping prepare his senior teammate for making a run at the state wrestling championship. On a daily basis, Bill knows he will be pummeled and pinned when the two boys work together after school on the school's wrestling mats. However, a bigger challenge for Bill arises when his thirteen-year-old sister, Diana, is accused of coercing younger brother, Jack, into an inappropriate sexual act. Bill's overbearing dictatorial father reacts to the news about his son and daughter in a characteristically irrational fashion. He refuses to allow Diana to reside any longer in the McCoy home and blocks Mrs. McCoy's desire to visit Diana when Diana is temporarily assigned by the juvenile court system to a juvenile detention center. When Diana disavows her involvement with her younger brother to Diana's court appointed therapist, Carrie Thompson, Bill becomes the go-between. He seeks help in his role of diplomatic liaison between his parents and Carrie and his sister from Susan Myers with whom he has developed a tentative, budding romance. Susan's and Bill's relationship, rapidly strengthening by their respect and concern for each other, is juxtaposed with the debilitating and gradually disintegrating relationship of Bill's father and mother. Bill's maturation is evident as he struggles to assist in the healing of his sister, to deal with his difficult father, and to manage his own romance. The Go Between also reveals both a family whose unstable relationships are exposed and shattered by the ill conceived behavior of daughter with son and the processes followed by social services in their attempts to remedy the emotional damage that results from the family's incest. The story also tactfully illuminates a current trend in the sexual experimentation of high school students.

Twelve-year-old Jonathan Quail lives in a Philadelphia neighborhood with his parents, a younger sister, and a baby brother until the night that his father is killed when he leaves the city bus that he drives to protect a woman from an abusive man. Jonathan's mother is unable to cope both financially and emotionally with the loss of her husband and the responsibilities of raising her three children. Jonathan and his sister and brother are placed in a foster home by the child protection agency. Readers will be able to relate to the challenges that Jonathan faces as he journeys from his biological home to foster home and then, due to conflict with another student at his new school, to a group home run by the juvenile probation service. Jonathan finds both resistance and assistance from new schools and classmates, and from new surrogate parents and siblings. His self-confidence and coping skills are strengthened through his encounters with peers and from the encouragement and guidance provided by his various caretakers. As he matures, he also finds solace and excitement from building relationships with girls his age. Climbing The Ropes was written to provide insight and hope to a young boy who was encountering similar experiences to Jonathan's. Consequently, young people who are involved with the various child protection and probation agencies as well as children who reside with their biological parents will find from reading Climbing The Ropes valuable understanding about improving their interpersonal relationships, and an appreciation for the frustration and satisfaction experienced by the youth workers who daily strive to provide love, structure, and guidance to children in their care. Youth counselors would also find the book helpful with clients from this point of view.

The “Great Recession” of 2008 has struck the United States. Calista Snipe’s family is adversely affected by the recession. Her father loses his job as a college professor and although Calista’s mother continues to work part time, the family’s income has been greatly reduced. Now her father is faced with the probability that his unemployment checks will cease if Congress does not vote to extend them. When a very rare monkey, a gibbon, escapes from the local zoo, Calista decides she will catch the gibbon and give the reward money to her father. In her search for the escaped gibbon, Calista enlists the help of her best friend, Skyler McCray. Skyler and Calista joined forces when they were in fourth grade to solve the mystery of the lost purse. Now, two years older, they believe they are up to the task of finding and capturing Papillon, the missing gibbon. However, the challenge of catching the little monkey soon becomes more difficult than they had anticipated as Papillon continually travels from one city park to another, and Cali and Sky discover that they do not have the best of equipment to capture a gibbon. To complicate their task, they discover that other parties are interested in capturing the monkey, and these parties are not happy to find that Cali and Sky are in the competition to win the reward money. To Catch A Monkey explores the impact of the 2008 recession on a middle class family, peer bullying, beginning awareness of puberty for later elementary grade children, and the strengthening friendship between a sixth grade boy and girl.

William Sturgis, aka Wee Willie, is boss of Leningrad, a crime group in a central Ohio city. In Finally Thirteen, Willie thought he had planned the perfect kidnapping. Two thirteen-year-olds, Skyler McCray and Calista Snipe, were taken to be sold to a Russian gang making pornographic videos. The kidnapping went awry when the kids used their wits to escape. Luckily for Wee Willie, his role in the kidnapping was not uncovered. Calista continued with her youthful employment, cooking one or two weekly meals for Sturgis. Now, seeking revenge as well as profit, Wee Willie plots another attempt at taking the teens and selling them to sex traffickers. Almost Fourteen begins with first semester at Park Junior High winding down. Autumn is over and the climate in central Ohio is due to change as are the business dealings and dating relationships of Cali, Sky and their group of junior high friends. Mohini Irish, drug dealer in residence at Park Junior, faces competition in her petty criminal transactions. Bill Baxter sees his football season end on a bitter note, but his dating season begins. Lee Ann Mosley tries to balance two boyfriends. However, knowledge of her racial history creates a strange conflict with one of them. Incredibly, self effacing Talia Murphy, emerging from her life-long shyness, finds her impossible dream come true with astonishing results. The love relationship between Skyler and Calista also moves into overdrive. Will the two young teens be able to handle the pace? Just as their romance becomes totally confusing and overwhelming, Sky and Cali are presented with new challenges as one classmate devises a devious revenge plot, another classmate presents a challenging malady, and Cali’s parents decide it is time for birth control for Cali. Wee Willie faces an unexpected challenge from Michael Aristad, the leader of rival gang Gold Coast. Can that challenge prevent Wee Willie from enacting revenge on Sky and Cali for escaping from the earlier kidnapping? One thing is certain: Calista, Skyler, and their friends will find junior high anything but boring.