July 24 release!

Chasing Tail Lights

(From Amazon.com)
Before he died, Christy’s daddy used to say that when you feel lost, follow the tail lights of the truck in front of you, and they’ll get you somewhere safe. Christy keeps chasing those tail lights, but somehow, she’s always still lost in Flint, Michigan. Like most teens in Flint, she’s dying to leave this dying city. But she’s got a secret that she’s never told anyone, and it’s keeping her chained like a dog to her dead-end life. And she’ll never be able to make a fresh start until she’s able to reveal that horrible truth and bring herself back into the light.

Patrick Jones revisits his hometown of Flint, Michigan, and the darkness that has overtaken this impoverished city in a novel that reveals the chilling reality of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in America today.

About the Author

PATRICK JONES received lifetime achievement awards from both the American Library Association and the Catholic Library Association for his work motivating young people to read. He is also the author of Things Change and Nailed and many books for librarians. Patrick was born and raised in Flint, Michigan, and currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

www.connectingya.com

Nailed by Patrick Jones
ISBN-13: 978-0802780775

From Booklist
Gr. 9-12. Sixteen-year-old Bret Hendricks personifies his father's adage: "The nail that sticks out the farthest gets hammered hardest." He's an actor in a school that worships jocks, a semi-intellectual in a blue-collar family, a kid with a ponytail in a school that values conformity. Although he secretly longs to be normal, he just can't bring himself to give up his love of theater--or his argumentative tendencies. The consequences of his aggressiveness are great: school suspensions, loss of his driving privileges, and a potential lawsuit for damaging a former buddy's car. This is a raw novel, filled with intolerance and pain, and many readers will recognize and identify with the small, everyday horrors that Bret endures because he can't or refuses to conform. Using multidimensional characters, Jones ably explores the dynamics of raising successful, independent children, at the same time exposing the difficulty faced by an educational system charged with celebrating independent thought and individual differences while enforcing rules and keeping kids safe. A tough, revealing book worthy of discussion.
-- Frances Bradburn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Things Change by Patrick Jones

Hardcover
ISBN: 0-8027-8901-3
Price: $16.95
224 pages

http://www.connectingya.com

"I want you to kiss me." These words come from the lips of high school junior Johanna. She is smart, studious, very self-consciousness, and more than a little shy, but decides to change her life by saying those words to Paul. Paul is a senior known more for cracking jokes than cracking open his schoolbooks. Like many relationships, the one between Johanna and Paul is intense, emotional, and for Johanna, all consuming Although Johanna is a whiz at math, she can’t calculate the conflict between her head and her heart as she becomes increasingly emotionally and physically involved with Paul. But when the touch of Paul’s hand turn from gentle to violent, Johanna has to decide if she can pull herself free of Paul’s orbit and to figure out what to do when her first love goes wrong and things change.

Early Praise for Things Change:

"From the ironic title to the uncompromising ending, tension dragged me by the hair through Things Change by Patrick Jones. The details are revealed relentlessly and steadily, with each twist tightening the noose of obsession, neediness, abuse, and control. Every time I thought I had all the details, another hook dragged me on. The turmoil of teenage emotions rang true, as did the striving for privacy and independence that created an antagonistic relationship between Johanna and her parents.—Annette Curtis Klause, author of Blood and Chocolate

“In his passionate first novel, noted librarian Patrick Jones examines the one constant in young adult lives: change! And he does it beautifully — with compelling insight; dramatic empathy; and unsentimental, tough-minded but sympathetic understanding. Things Change is a transformative reading experience and I wouldn’t change a word of it.” —Michael Cart, author of My Father’s Scar .

“ The stakes for a young human being to come of age are always high, but in Patrick Jones’s Things Change the stakes are mortal. It’s an important novel for young readers— young women and men—and for their parents.” —Terry Davis, author of If Rock and Roll Were a Machine.