Consider the Dragonfly, Paperback/Malcolm Ivey

A gritty, suspenseful coming-of-age novel. CJ McCallister graduated from junior high to juvenile hall before he completed eighth grade. He wasn't a bad kid. In many ways, he was a typical teenage boy: curious, awkward, friendly and shy. So where did things go wrong? It may have been the Barocela brothers; twin bullies, relentless in their cruelty. It could have been his delusional, dope-smoking dad, or the betrayal of a close friend, or the unrequited love of a girl, or his own voracious appetite for drugs, or the ill-fated bond he forged in detention. Or maybe it was simply that his destiny lay behind the razor wire, as fixed and unavoidable as the rising sun. At eighteen, CJ was handcuffed, shackled, and headed for one of the most notorious prison systems in the nation. It was there, in the long shadows of the gun towers, among the sick and dying in the terminal unit of the prison, that he found strength, honor, kindness, and ultimately, himself. Consider the Dragonfly is the heartbreaking, inspiring story of a family fractured by addiction and mental illness, and the journey of a good kid gone bad who manages to hang onto his humanity in spite of losing everything else.