Devils Within

Sixteen-year-old Nate has grown up in a white supremacist compound, but when he kills his abusive father in self-defence he is removed from the compound and placed with an uncle he never knew about. Nate struggles to establish a new identity in a new town and new school and ironically becomes friends with Brandon, an African-American – a group that Nate had been conditioned to hate without reason—who is the first to treat Nate like a real person. This engaging novel for grades 9-12, inspired by real-life events, deals with the sensitive issues of racism, extremism, and white supremacy and can be used as a literature circle or whole class novel and for inquiry- or project-based units on self-identity. Social considerations noted.