The Orange Houses by Paul Griffin

Another awful YA book from the Teen Reads list. The only good things about this story are that it is short (147 pages) and has no foul language. The three main characters (a hearing impaired girl, an illegal alien, and a wounded war veteran) were interesting, but there was little character development and even less plot. None was believable. The only interesting part of the story was the subtitle for each chapter that referred to a hanging. However, when the hanging occurred it wasn't even dramatic. Maybe the book would appeal to a 5th grader, but there's not much to appeal to anyone with a more developed reading ability.