Mr. Bacigalupi’s description of a future Gulf Coast region ravaged by a once oil-addicted society provides the base for the compelling story centered on Nailer, a teenage boy on the “have not” side of an abysmal economic divide. Nailer scrapes a living together as part of a crew that scavenges copper wire and other scrap within the rusting husks of ships from the oil-hungry past. It’s deadly work for little pay, but Nailer worries about this livelihood disappearing as soon as he grows too big to navigate the narrow ducts and passageways where he finds “scavenge”. Yet even in this wasteland, friendship and trust, and some good luck, make way for hope.

Ship Breaker presents several challenging and, I would say, timely themes in a way that may be provocative, but is not pedantic.

A few reviewers of The Haunted Bookshop have found the protagonist's discussion of books--many of them contemporaries of this 1918 novel--and book selling boring and off-point. For me, they made the story. I thoroughly enjoyed Roger Mifflin’s musings on literature and the art of bookselling as well as his interactions with other characters, especially his wife and his enthusiastic mentee, the daughter of a friend. The plot's mystery, though engaging at the outset, proved rather hokey and not very compelling. However, the mystery never pretends to be the draw of this title (in my opinion), so its hokey-ness doesn't really disappoint. 

Bud (not Buddy), at age ten, is already well aware of life's lack of fairness. His mother has died, and he suffers one horrible experience after another in foster homes in Great Depression-era Flint, Michigan. After having a pencil shoved up his nose and spending a sleepless night locked in a shed, Bud decides it's time to try to escape this abusive cycle, but where to? He believes his mother meant to tell him who his father is before she died, but she waited too long. All he has are a few clues that he knows will lead to his father, or at least he hopes they will. So Bud sets out on a journey to the other side of the state and meets some interesting characters, and situations, along the way. He faces his adventure with honesty (even though he's a master liar), courage, and wit. An engaging story for fifth-graders on up.