Sixteen-year-old Robert’s routine endoscopy results are far from normal. He wakes from unconsciousness to find himself being operated on by a doctor who is being held at gunpoint by a man called Ryan. Robert escapes, opens up his wounds, and sees, for himself, his machinelike insides. Falsely accused of murder, Robert enlists the help of Eddi, who forges him a new identity and takes him to her house in Spain, but the mysterious Ryan stays on their trail. In this taut thriller, Robert, an orphan, struggles to understand who he really is and what it really means to be human. Kevin Brooks has been awarded YALSA Best Books for Young Adults in 2004 for Lucas and 2007 for Road of the Dead , 2003 Branford Boase Award for Best First Novel (UK) for Martyn Pig. Black Rabbit Summer was nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, 2009. hc

A lonely teen, Robert Smith finds himself involved in events totally out of his control. A foster kid with a stomachache, he arrives at the hospital alone for a routine endoscopy. Not fully anesthetized, he hears the doctors claim that his insides aren't human. Unidentified men with guns swarm in, Robert bolts, and finds himself on the front page of the newspaper accused of stabbing one of the doctors. His subsequent flight begins a grisly string of events where murder, alcohol, and fear abound. Suggested level: senior secondary.