Cool Mike
by Vicki Bartholomew

Eighth-grader Will Monroe is new in town, and he's having a hard time.

While the girls at school are pursuing his older brother, and all the neighborhood's single mothers have designs on his bachelor father, Will has no friends at all.

He turns to an online chat room and confides in a peer with the screen name “Cool Mike.”

But Cool Mike is actually a depraved adult, from whom Will is only narrowly rescued.

More than just a cautionary tale, Cool Mike evokes the profound though often hidden bonds between siblings, neighbors, and schoolmates.