The Goats

Today for Young Readers Week I am going to look at one of the most powerful books ever written for twelve- to fourteen-year-olds. Like all books that change us and make us a different person, I remember exactly where I was and how I felt the first time I read it. I was Editor of Horn Book, started and finished it in my office, and then was just grateful that the door was closed. In rereading Brock Cole’s The Goats, I once again had the visceral feeling that I had been punched in the stomach. The Goats has lost none of its power over the last 24 years.

Two young people, Howie and Laura, are attending summer camp and find themselves the subjects of a cruel action: Both are stripped of their clothes and then left stranded together on an island. Their plight has been engineered as part of a camp ritual to mock the outsiders, “the goats,” who other campers don’t like. But rather than remain victims, Howie figures out a way to get the two of them to the shoreline. At first he has to keep a survival scenario going; in the end Laura will save them both. They wander making things up as they go, breaking into a house to steal some clothes and food, traveling and trying to stay out of camp. Both understand that absolutely, under no circumstances, will they go back to the camp and people who have bullied them.

By the time Brock Cole wrote The Goats he had created a body of picture books. Certainly in control of the craft of writing, he draws with a sure hand two totally believable characters and a horrible situation; slowly he shows the growth and change of Laura and Howie as they move from victims to young people who carry themselves with dignity. They do so in a world where the adults are either absent or uncaring. One of the things that Brock accomplishes so brilliantly is their feeling of being utterly alone, of needing to find solutions for themselves in a hostile world.

Although the book has been controversial since publication, many young readers have found comfort in it. In the end The Goats suggests that no matter how horrific the situation you find yourself in, there is a solution, which you can work toward. I certainly know what it is like to be “a goat.” I know what it is like to feel alone and abandoned by the adults in my life. When I read and reread this book, I recognize that Brock Cole gets that reality completely right. For anyone who is going or has gone through difficulties with peers and family, The Goats can provide a light in a dark world. For as Laura says at the end: “Hold on….Hold on.”

Here’s a passage from The Goats: