GUEST WRITER JACOB LEBLANC RECOMMENDS WHEN WE RIDE BY REX OGLE
Do you, dear reader, have a forever friend? A friend who has been in your life for so long that you do not even remember when or how you became friends? “Friend” may not even be a strong enough word to express the love you have for them. Perhaps this friend is more like a sibling. Diego Benevides has a forever friend, a brother named Lawson, and he is selling drugs at their high school.
Reflecting on your forever friend, what would you do if you found out they were doing the same? Would you turn them in or allow them to continue to sell drugs to support their family? Rex Ogle’s When We Ride walks the tight rope of these considerations without fear.
The driving novel written in verse is unafraid to ask the tough questions of adolescence, confronting issues of drug and alcohol use with honesty and empathy for the real decisions teens face. While Diego is resistant to substance use because of his family history of addiction and a commitment to his academic future, the book puts forth a framework of how young people can talk about the selling and use of drugs around them.
When We Ride follows Diego as he navigates how to get Lawson out of the danger associated with the drug dealing racket. As Lawson moves from selling dime bags of marijuana to pills and hard drugs, Diego wrestles with the fact that to look out for his own future, he may have to leave Lawson in the past. While this conversation is introduced through the lens of drugs in the book, When We Ride is about so much more. It asks young readers who are ready for mature themes to consider the difficulties of adolescence and how growing apart from a friend is a grieving process that is not linear.
Rex Ogle’s book invites readers to find the balance between how much we value the present versus the future. How do we choose between friends that need us and the family that we need? How do we weigh the moral and legal implications of drug dealing against the necessity that drives and forces people to sell? If mature themes and these questions pique your interest, Rex Ogle’s When We Ride is the book for you.
Jacob LeBlanc is a student in the B.Ed program at University of New Brunswick. Born and raised in Fredericton along the Wolastoq, Jacob grew up in theatre where he would stuff his head in a book in between scenes. In his university life where he studied philosophy, Jacob developed a contentious relationship with books by viewing reading as work. While this work can take you to weird and wonderful places, he is working to get to these places through a love of reading. Jacob is learning to love reading again through young adult fiction, comics, and graphic novels!