Lockdown by Laurie R King *****

“A school is a tapestry.” This metaphor appears over two dozen times in Lockdown by Laurie R King. The school is Guadalupe Middle School, and it has all the problems of a low-income, rural school. Linda McDonald is the new principal charged with building a sense of community. While the book includes a dozen point-of-view characters, each with their own well-developed story, the school is the main character. The book weaves a beautiful tapestry. I highly recommend this thrilling novel about poverty, education, and community.

Linda McDonald grew up in Ohio, but her path to California included international travel. She met her husband, Gordon Hugh-Kendrick, in Papua New Guinea. His past has left him a wanted man by Taylor Corp. – guns for hire. Many of the characters are hiding their past. Some are undocumented and avoid La Migra, but others have a variety of less typical reasons to be incognito. Linda hides her past because she had many more opportunities than most of her students who might never have left town.

One of the mysteries that runs throughout the story is the disappearance of Bee Cuomo. Her father might have abused her. She was someone who fit everywhere in a Middle School, a place where most didn’t fit anywhere. “The missing element was Bee Cuomo. Bee was a child oblivious to social expectations. An eleven-year-old who was extraordinarily—alarmingly—deaf to criticism, blind to the subtle and inexorable cues under which middle school society functioned. She’d dressed like a child, and seemed unaware that there was a wall between the grades. She would start conversations with sixth-grade losers and eighth-grade jocks alike. She’d ask the most popular girl in school where she got her hair cut (and what’s more, get an answer). Bee would share her lunch with a kid whose breath could melt plastic.”

In the discussion questions, the following is asked: “Not all the crimes discussed in the book are solved: the threats to Gordon, the question of who might be after Mina’s family, and the mystery of what happened to Bee Cuomo. Did these uncertainties bother you?” These unresolved issues lead me to identify the main character as the school, the community, and the tapestry. The community is resolved and little else. Fabulous.

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