Full VOYA review of MOPED ARMY

This is the full review of MOPED ARMY by Kat Kan in the December 2005 issue of VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) Magazine, a national publication directed toward teen services librarians, and addresses the needs and concerns of what teen and yound adult readers are looking for. This review gave MOPED ARMY a 5Q (“hard to imagine it being better written”) and 3P (“will appeal with pushing”) rating! Thanks, Kat!:

TEEN OUTCASTS IN THE FUTURE
In Paul Sizer?s Moped Army, a teen survival clique in the year 2277 has resurrected the Moped Army (there is a real Moped Army in the U.S. now, read the introduction) in Rust City, the old Bolt Harbor upon which a new city was built. High school senior Simone comes from a good family; her father works for a major firm building the aircars that all upper Bolt Harbor citizens drive ever since gasoline was outlawed. She has a boyfriend, son of her father?s boss, and all the advantages a girl could want. Unless one wants to live her own life. Chester is a bully, a dope addict, and loves to ride his aircar down to Rust City and use its air blasts to hurt people down there. One night Simone reluctantly rides with him, and Chester and his friends kill a young moped rider, which horrifies Simone. Some time later, still haunted by the murder, she ventures down to Rust City, where she naturally gets into trouble right away and is saved by two young men riding mopeds. The leader, Dingle, introduces her to his loosely-knit group of young misfits, all of whom ride old mopeds, relics of the late twentieth-century, which they keep fueled by locating old gas stations and siphoning the illegal gasoline. Soon Simone starts spending more time in Rust City with the Moped Army, attracted by their acceptance of her as she is. As she does this, her life in Bolt Harbor becomes more burdensome, and she realizes she can?t stay with the cruel Chester or her clueless parents any more.
Sizer based his story on the real Moped Army, and used two of the Kalamazoo leaders to make sure his depiction of the mopeds and the philosophy of the Moped Army were all true to life. This is a much edgier story than his Little White Mouse (VOYA April 2005), and is set in the lower, darker parts of the city where poor people have to scratch out a living and scrounge for everything. Older teens will find some harsh language, the occasional middle finger salute, discussion of sex (which occurs off-page), and some violence. They will also find a compelling story with socio-political ideas simmering under the surface of the action, and a coming-of-age story as Simone finds her place in the world. Oh, and the fact that the Moped Army hangs out in an abandoned library and uses its resources to find the information they need is very cool, too.