DOING TIME ONLINE

One young man’s punishment becomes an elderly woman’s hope in the confines of an Internet chatroom. This intriguing narrative thinks outside the box, and should inspire more experiments with programs like the one presented here. Mitch logs on reluctantly at the police station under the supervision of Officer MacDougal, to pay his debt to society for a teen prank. His correspondent, Wootie, is a not-so-sweet old lady who herself is “stuck” in a nursing home while she mends. Each must slowly come to grips with the passages they are experiencing in their lives. While Mitch chafes at accepting some blame for the role he played in hurting a neighbor, irascible Wootie asks him directly just the right questions and advises him in just the right way to bring him along. Meanwhile, Mitch accidentally learns Wootie will not get to go back home, and the realization that she looks forward to their exchange helps him shoulder the responsibility of helping her to make the most of her situation, not to mention change her disposition. Mitch is able in the end to face apologizing to the neighbor, as well as turning tables on the bad, mean kid who instigated the whole prank. Siebold’s dialogue—online and not—and first-person narrative furthers this coming-of-age story without extraneous judgments. It’s a win-win story that would make Officer MacDougal proud. (Fiction. 9-12)