Today’s blog post features two novels about boys and young men working through trauma toward resilience and love.   We recommend these suspense/thrillers for adult readers and for potential group-reads by 8th graders and up in Social Studies, English, Psychology, and other similar classrooms.

Here’s more about these two novels.

When We Were Wolves is the story of a man who has buried painful childhood memories deep within his psyche. But breaking news about a national celebrity forces him to confront his past and begin a quest to bring his boyhood hero to justice.  As the stakes grow larger, he finds himself at odds with his family, friends, and a media obsessed with people with fame and fortune. To do the right thing, he must risk hurting everyone and everything he loves while learning what it means to be a true hero.

J. E. Tobin, the author, moved to New York City after college with a journalism degree and dreams of becoming a writer. After writing two off-Broadway plays for the Circle Repertory Company and children’s books for MacMillan, he watched from a rowboat as his first novel burned in a New Hampshire hotel fire. As a result, his writing shifted to textbooks and scholarly articles as he pursued a career as an educator and psychologist. Only when his son convinced him to revisit his dream, did he return to writing fiction.  Brian Castleberry calls it “a timely gut-punch of a book.”

Michael Gurian, The New York Times bestselling author of The Wonder of Boys and The Stone Boys, says: “To enter the world of J.E. Tobin’s When We Were Wolves is to immerse ourselves in a vital David and Goliath story ripped right from the headlines.  Truth and courage are pitted against lies, lawyers, and hero worship.  The writing is vivid and the plot relentless.  This novel brims with empathy and insight and will stay with the reader long after the last page is read.  And it may just change our perception of what makes someone a hero.”

You may find out more about the author and the book (including an excerpt) at https://www.jetobin.com/.

The Stone Boys is another gripping story of this same kind.  It involves two adolescent boys, Dave, 16, and Ben, 17, in the summer of 1975 who have experienced significant sexual abuse trauma in early boyhood.  As the book’s thriller/suspense plot unfolds, the plot twists and character development reveal multiple, organic challenges to each boy’s relationships and resilience – and, indeed, their very lives.

To learn more about The Stone Boys, please see the book’s page on www.amazon.com or www.michaelgurian.com.  If your school or community would like to purchase group orders of The Stone Boys, you will be given the education discount from the Gurian Institute.  Please write gail@gurianinstitute.com to get that process started. For comments and questions, please write us at info@gurianinstitute.com.

Our next Helping Boys Thrive Summit will be a Virtual Summit sponsored by The Boys Initiative in Washington, D.C. At the Summit, Michael Gurian and the other speakers will discuss all topics related to boys, including trauma.  For more information about the Virtual Summit and to register, please click www.helpingboysthrive.org/boysinitiative.