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Description
A Winnipeg Free Press Bestseller! • In the Margins Book Award, Top Ten Selection • CCBC’s Best Books for Kids & Teens (Fall 2017) Selection
Close as brothers, Jakub’s and Lincoln’s lives diverge when Jakub gets a private school scholarship and Lincoln is lured into a gang.
Fifteen-year-old Jakub Kaminsky is the son of Polish immigrants, a good Catholic boy, and a graffiti artist. While his father sleeps, Jakub and his best friend, Lincoln, sneak out with spray paint to make their mark as Morf and Skar.
When Jakub gets a scholarship to an elite private school, he knows it’s his chance for a better life. But it means leaving Lincoln and the neighbourhood he calls home.
While Jakub’s future is looking bright, Lincoln’s gets shady as he is lured into his brother’s gang. Jakub watches helplessly as Lincoln gets pulled deeper into the violent world of the Red Bloodz. The Red Bloodz find out Jakub knows more than he should about a murder and want him silenced — for good. Lincoln has to either save his friend, or embrace life as one of the Red Bloodz.
Close as brothers, Jakub’s and Lincoln’s lives diverge when Jakub gets a private school scholarship and Lincoln is lured into a gang.
Fifteen-year-old Jakub Kaminsky is the son of Polish immigrants, a good Catholic boy, and a graffiti artist. While his father sleeps, Jakub and his best friend, Lincoln, sneak out with spray paint to make their mark as Morf and Skar.
When Jakub gets a scholarship to an elite private school, he knows it’s his chance for a better life. But it means leaving Lincoln and the neighbourhood he calls home.
While Jakub’s future is looking bright, Lincoln’s gets shady as he is lured into his brother’s gang. Jakub watches helplessly as Lincoln gets pulled deeper into the violent world of the Red Bloodz. The Red Bloodz find out Jakub knows more than he should about a murder and want him silenced — for good. Lincoln has to either save his friend, or embrace life as one of the Red Bloodz.
Author Bio
An author and elementary school teacher, Colleen Nelson earned her Bachelor of Education from the University of Manitoba in her hometown of Winnipeg. Her novels in The Harvey Stories include the multi-award-winning Harvey Comes Home and Harvey Holds His Own, which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. She is also the author of Sadia, winner of the 2019 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award, Blood Brothers, selected as the 2018 McNally Robinson Book of the Year for Young People, and the picture book Teaching Mrs. Muddle. Colleen writes daily in between appearances at hockey rinks and soccer fields in support of her two sports-loving sons.
Prizes
- CCBC’s Best Books for Kids & Teens (Fall 2017)Commended 2017
- Dewey Divas and the Dudes Winter 2017Commended 2017
- High Plains Book Award, Young Adult BookShort-listed 2018
- McNally Robinson Book for Young People AwardWinner 2018
- In the Margins Book Award, Top Ten ListCommended 2018
Review Quotes
Blood Brothers will have huge appeal to both male and female young adult readers … Thought-provoking yet entertaining.
— Canadian Materials
A smartly plotted examination of the despair that keeps people in their places and the hope that pulls them out of it.
— Kirkus Reviews
Nelson’s gritty new novel…skillfully explores moral dilemmas and difficult decisions.
— Canadian Children's Book News
This is [Nelson’s] most serious novel so far and one that deserves acclaim.
— Winnipeg Free Press
Readers ... will be rewarded with an aptly dark ending that gives the book extra emotional weight.
— School Library Journal
For Jakub and Lincoln, whose voices Colleen Nelson asserts both honestly and compassionately through those strides and missteps, it's their brotherhood that walks with them, leaving its own footprints.
— Can Lit for Little Canadians
Nelson crafts an engaging story about two boys struggling to survive … Readers looking for a gritty story about true friendship and the consequences of one’s actions will enjoy this offering.
— Booklist
Biographical note
Colleen Nelson is an award-winning teacher and author whose previous books include Finding Hope, The Fall, and Tori by Design. As the mother of two energetic boys, she does her writing in the early morning hours with a strong cup of coffee. This is Colleen’s fifth YA novel. She lives in Winnipeg.
