Lockdown: Escape from furnace

YA READS:

Smith, A.G. (n.d.). Lockdown escape
from furnace [digital image]. Retrieved
November 1, 2016 from http://www.
alexandergordonsmith.com/?s=escape
+rom+furnace

Smith, A.G. (2009). Lockdown: Escape from furnace. New York: Farrar Straus Giraux.  ISBN: 978-0-13-61193-4; $7.00 (paperback).

What is the most terrifying place you can imagine?  Is it a place deep inside the earth where darkness and echoing screams fill your waking hours?  Is it a place run by mutant human-creatures who breathe through a mechanical apparatus sewn onto their faces?  If this is the case, you’ve just pictured Furnace, a high security prison for juvenile offenders.  Alexander Gordon Smith has created a world in which teens found guilty of murder are sent to life imprisonment in a cavern hundreds of meters below the surface of the earth.  Atop the entrance to the crag sits one of the most militarized structures in England, and the only exit from the cave is an elevator guarded by mutant dogs.  Alex Sawyer has been sent to Furnace for the crime of killing his best friend.  The only catch is he didn’t do it.  Will he survive the gangs, the food, the hard labor, and the terrors of Furnace?  Will he find a way out of the hell-hole that slowly chips away at his sanity?  Will Alex Escape from Furnace?

AWARDS according to FictionDB:

* 2011 Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers -- Young Adult (Honor Book)

* 2012 Young Reader's Choice Award -- Senior/Grades 10-12 (Nominee)

HOMEMADE TEES:

This book has a greater following in the U.K., which is where Alexander Gordon Smith calls home.  This might make finding t-shirts a bit tricky.  But here's a great piece of fan art, available from CafePress:

CafePress. (2012). Escape from furnace
[digital image]. Retrieved November 1,
2016 from http://www.cafepress.com/mf/
68646224/escape-from-furnace-official-logo-
female_tshirt?productId=653979210

This next t-shirt is certainly an interesting choice, if you've already read the book and understand two things.  (1) Only half of the kids in Furnace are really thugs, but they all have to behave like one to survive. (2) Kitchen duty is really what saves Alex and his friends, in the end.  Wear this shirt and if anyone asks, just say, "I'm a fan of Lockdown." (small text: "If I cut myself, you know I'll cut you.")

Robinson, L. (2016). Exceptional kitchen
shirts #5 [digital image]. Retrieved November
1, 2016 from http://www.laurensthoughts.com/
kitchen-shirts/exceptional-kitchen-shirts-5-
thug-kitchen-shirt/

WANT MORE?  If you don't trust my review of the book, then listen to the author in his own words describing his first book in the Furnace series.  "Beneath heaven is hell... and beneath hell is Furnace." Ooo... spooky!