Los Angeles! City of tanned shoulders! Smog-spewing, pay-per-viewing, sit-com maker for the world!?

Del's put in 17 years there, bouncing among foster homes. Smart, sharp-tongued, a master mimic, she's fed up with her world and with being Del. So she's faked her own death and is leaving both herself and L.A. behind until her escape lands her in an all-day traffic jam.
Fast-forward eight years. It's opening night for the one-woman play she's written and is starring in a show called Breakout, about a Los Angeles traffic jam. Wildly funny, she seems to be skewering workaholics, road ragers, pickup artists, and car culture in general. But readers will see what her audience can t that the show is a portrait of herself, of her hunger for her mother and her terror of rejection, her free-floating identity and yearning for connection.
Flashing between Del's present and future, Breakout gives us a backstage pass into a young playwright's psyche, letting us watch her life being transformed into a art, heartache into comedy, solitude into community, and anger gradually giving way to acceptance.

 

This book is the winner of numerous awards. It was recognised in the Grades 10-12 category by the Young Reader's Choice Award. It was recognised in the YA category by the Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award. It also was recognised by the National Book Award.

This book has been graded for interest at 12+ years.

There are 160 pages in this book. This book was published 2003 by Cricket Books, a division of Carus Publishing Co .

Paul Fleischman is one of America's leading writers for young people and has won many awards, including a Newbery Medal (the US equivalent of the Carnegie Medal). He lives in the US.