House Arrest, K.A. Holt
Realistic fiction/Novel in verse
Timothy knows stealing is wrong. He’s not dumb. Everyone knows that.
But sometimes stealing is complicated. Like when your baby brother is sick and your dad left and your mom is working a million hours a week just to make ends meet. What if you stole a credit card to pay for your brother’s medicine? What if you were making things worse to try to make them better?
Stealing is complicated, but it’s also wrong, and now Timothy has a year of probation, a year of house arrest, and a year of keeping a not-so-private journal in order to avoid juvie. His probation officer tells him he needs to “show remorseâ€. His court-ordered therapist tells him he needs to “share his feelings.â€
At first, most of the feelings are about how much he hates writing in his journal. But over time, Timothy starts telling the real truth: that he’s angry with his father, that he worries about money, that he has a crush on his best friend’s sister. And that he’s sorry for stealing – or at least sorry for getting caught. And the most important truth of all: that he would do absolutely anything to help his baby brother.