SUCH NICE KIDS

Jason, psyched for his dinner date with a girl named Destiny, is dismayed when the plans of his friends Pidge and Meeker intrude. Jason's parents are out of town; Pidge needs Jason's mother's car as transport for his own date. Persuaded by Meeker that his mother will never know, Jason reluctantly agrees—setting off a chain of events that end with Pidge dead at the hands of drug dealers. While this didactic short novel makes points about the dangers of passively following another's lead, it reads like a parent's ultimate scare tactic—"See what happens when you borrow my car without asking?" Moreover, there is no real character development. As they do wth stagy accident films in driver's ed, readers are likely to shrug this off as just too much to be believed.