Committee for Children Blog

Book Review: No Castles Here

By A. C. E. Bauer
Reading level: Grades 6–8

Eleven-year-old Augie Boretski’s best bet in life is to be invisible. As a skinny, friendless boy in a down-and-out neighborhood, Augie tries to keep off the radar of Sergio, Dwaine, and Fox Tooth, the three biggest troublemakers in sixth grade. Unfortunately, he is their favorite target. School is a daily trial, as the boys chase, beat up, and steal from Augie. Exhausted by anxiety and hunger (his lunch is stolen regularly), Augie is getting by, but just barely. School is all about survival.

Meanwhile, Augie’s single mother is pushing him to participate in a Big Brother program with a nice man named Walter who turns out to be gay. What will happen to Augie if the boys find out? To make matters worse, Augie finds himself auditioning for the newly formed junior chorus alongside his nemesis, Sergio. And to top it all off, Augie has accidentally stolen a book from a shop—a fairy tale, no less. In spite of himself, Augie becomes absorbed in the book, which seems to have a mysterious, even magical personalized message for its reader.

It takes gentle support from some of the grownups in his life, but slowly, lurchingly, things start to look up for Augie. The chorus is turning into something special, even with an unheated rehearsal space and resistance from the school administration. Augie is beginning to heed advice from his tough but wise teacher: “You can’t always run away from your problems, Augustus. They have a way of following you.” He’s coming to some conclusions of his own, too: “Keeping [Walter] out of his life because of narrow-minded, bullying Dwaine was stupid…Why was he letting Dwaine choose his friends?”

Augie’s growing confidence has another effect. When the school board makes plans to shut down Augie’s decrepit and low-performing middle school, ostensibly because of damages from an ice storm, it’s our quiet, skittish hero who spearheads the grass-roots effort to fix it up and keep it going. The place that had so recently made him physically ill with fear has become a community center…even for Augie.

Social and Emotional Lessons in No Castles Here

Augie, like most children, spends a large portion of every weekday in school. Because he doesn't feel safe and welcomed there, he has difficulty concentrating and participating in his own education. He feels “fuzzy-brained.” His teacher “bark[s] at him to pay attention.” School climate is an imprecise concept, but if we accept the idea that it represents students' and teachers' feelings and attitudes about their school, Augie's school climate is far from positive for most of No Castles Here. At the conclusion, he and his community are literally rebuilding the school; the assumption is that the school climate will improve dramatically once the families and teachers feel more ownership of their school. It is not necessary to physically restructure a school to change students', teachers', families', and administrators' attitudes about the environment. But it is important to involve both students and adults in a “mental reconstruction” of school climate.

Classroom Activity

After reading No Castles Here, teachers can discuss with the class what makes them feel safe or unsafe in school. As a group, they can come up with ways to improve the school climate for everyone. Some questions to get the dialogue started:

  • Why doesn't Augie want to audition for the chorus, even though he loves to sing?
  • How does Augie's decision to join the chorus jump-start other changes in his life?
  • Imagine how things might have gone if Augie didn't have support from some important grownups.
  • Would he have become interested in reading? Would he have joined chorus? Would he have come up with the plan to save the school? Describe how Augie’s school might feel to students and teachers once it's been repaired and re-opened.

Note to teachers: In the interest of full disclosure…on several occasions, Augie curses (“damn”) in frustration. There is also some background gang drug activity, but it is set in the context of Augie’s stressful daily passage through his neighborhood.