Big Burn

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

With each of his more than half-dozen issues-oriented YA titles, Nova
Scotian author Lesley Choyce has demonstrated that he can write
effectively for an adolescent audience, especially teen males. Over a
summer, east-coaster Chris Knox, 16, comes to learn that you can fight
city hall and win. The issue driving Chris is the community’s garbage
dump, which has installed an incinerator to burn imported waste.
Chris’s father, an environmental engineer, had advised government
authorities against the incinerator’s construction; his advice, which
threatened the local economy, led to his unemployment. Chris’s social
conscience gets a dose of extrinsic motivation with the arrival of the
attractive Marina Ryerson. Her father’s cancer, she believes, but
cannot prove, was caused by his 20 years of working in a chemical plant.
Mr. Ryerson’s death, coupled with an announcement that a second
incinerator will be built to burn chemical wastes from factories, leads
the teens to greater action, including Chris’s attempt use windsurfers
to block the arrival of the first chemical-laden barge.

The developing Chris–Marina romance and a delightful one-winged
seagull named Jack manage to keep the story from becoming blatantly
didactic. Even the happy ending is plausible. Recommended.