The Boy Behind The Camera 

 

Sixteen-year-old Manfred Kase High sophomore Glenn Glantz has been shy and non-confrontational all his life. He feels most alive behind his photojournalist grandfather’s Pentax camera, and aspires to follow in his grandfather’s shoes. When school bullies (and star forwards on the basketball team), Doug and Danny set their sights on Glenn, they take his camera and give him an ultimatum: tag the bronze bust of the school’s namesake or never see his cherished Pentax again. But after Glenn tags the bust they destroy the camera anyway. Now determined to stop their reign of terror, Glenn enlists his friends and devises a daring, media-savvy scheme to expose the brother’s bullying. At the same time, for his sixteenth birthday Glenn’s parents give him the information he needs to contact his sperm-donor father, Dylan. As Glenn gets to know Dylan, they discover a shared love of photography, and Glenn’s confidence in himself grows. The two get closer, but when Glenn learns that Dylan lost his son Charles in Afghanistan, Glenn worries that Dylan might consider him a replacement for Charles.   

 

The Boy Behind The Camera is a darkly humorous book about how a young man finds inner strength against what seem like unsurmountable odds, and how losing something you cherished offers up new possibilities.