Nora
Raleigh Baskin's latest book dances around the subject of what it
means for a child to be "troubled" compared to other kids, and how
sometimes shuffling them off to boarding school so that other
adults can "fix" them isn't always the best --- or most effective
--- solution.

After a classmate dies in a "freak car accident," affecting
everyone at school, and Mia's shoplifting habit begins to spiral
out of control (as in, she actually gets caught), Mia's parents
start discussing her options. After many late-night arguments over
the issue, they decide to enroll her at Mountain Laurel School for
Alternative Education, formally a program reserved for emotionally
disturbed adolescent boys. According to Mia, "going to Mountain
Laurel was my choice. That's what they told me. They. The
collective they. My therapist. My school counselor. The
entire-middle school guidance department. My dad. And my mom, who
was the one who found the place to begin with." Clearly, Mia wasn't
looking forward to the change.

When she arrives at the farmhouse boarding school in the middle of
nowhere, Mia immediately feels like she doesn't belong there, and,
of course, she doesn't. Most, if not all of the boys there --- Mia
is the only girl --- have actual emotional, developmental or
physical problems, whereas Mia, despite having just experienced a
classmate's death, is just suffering from her own version of
haughty preteen angst.  Thus the storyline of IN THE COMPANY
OF CRAZIES is just that --- a young girl's tale of her short time
spent in the company of these "crazies" before her parents realize
the error of their ways and come to retrieve her.

Baskin's rendering of this pseudo ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
narrative, albeit a tamer, cleaner and not-as-nutty version for the
younger crowd, is fairly what you'd expect. The requisite
overbearing headmaster runs the school with an iron fist much like
the infamous Nurse Ratched would, and Mia --- like McMurphy ---
doesn't fit in with the rest of the crazies. At times, some readers
might wish that the day-to-day goings on at the school (and the
other boys' quirks) would feel a little more over-the-top in
contrast so that Mia's sanity wouldn't seem so in question and the
circumstances in which she finds herself so ill-fitting. Baskin
makes up for this shortcoming, however, in her delicate yet genuine
approach when describing Debbie Sanders's sudden death and its
far-reaching effect on her classmates.

IN THE COMPANY OF CRAZIES is an interesting read that could spark
much-needed conversations between parents and children about the
appropriate and healthy ways to process grief and how "acting out"
may be more trouble than it's worth.

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