When I was a little kid, I wanted to work for The Daily Planet. What a letdown it was to find out that The Daily Planet was not a real place. But luckily, journalism classes did exist. And I jumped at the chance to join the school paper in both high school and college. So, the premise of Frank Morelli’s middle grade novel, Breaking News, really resonated me. However, the articles I wrote weren’t nearly as cutthroat and passionate as the ones that are featured in this novel. Below is my review of Breaking News along with an interview with Morelli.
Breaking News plot summary
Eighth grader Tony Ravello writes for The Ridgewood Roar, the official newspaper of Ridgewood Art and Tech, affectionately known as “the RAT.” His arch rival is Liberty “Libby” Lennon, a former member of the staff who, due to creative differences, has since branched out to create her own paper, The Rebel Yell.
The two journalists butt heads both in print and in real life. But when $1,000 goes missing from a ticket booth at a student gallery during a fundraising event hosted by the Visual Arts Committee and its members, the two rivals must team up to find the culprit.
The story
Breaking News is told through a series of news articles and recordings from the student journalists covering the school scandal. Readers must read between the lines of the somewhat professional, though usually more gossipy news and notes that are presented to us. The characters also can’t help but inject their personal lives and feelings into their work, often throwing verbal stones at each other, particularly Ravello and Lennon.
Most of the story is focused on solving the mystery of the missing money. It’s not so much about making sure that the proceeds from the charity event actually go to the charity as much as it is about exposing a thief among their classmates. There’s nothing more intriguing than gossip and scandal. And the young reporters must go where the story goes, until it becomes necessary to put their personal vendettas aside in order to crack that story wide open.
The characters
Despite attending a gifted school, the characters are your typical middle schoolers. Tony seeks that coveted spot of editor-in-chief for The Roar while Libby is more concerned with controlling the content that she puts out with her own publication. The current editor-in-chief of The Roar, Trent Millsdale, is your standard rich punk who throws all of his self-worth into his popularity status. Then, there is the quiet and focused Hunter Jackson who keeps his head down and away from the gossip in the name of hardcore journalism.
This novel really puts you back into that eighth-grade mindset of overinflating the tiniest issues and using whatever platform you have available in order to share your thoughts on those issues. The kids in this story use old-fashioned methods of communication in order to spread their thoughts and gossip. We don’t see them utilizing their cell phones or social media to investigate or argue. They do it through old-fashioned print and audio in a modern hipster sort of way.
One thing that doesn’t change, though, is how those with differing opinions or personal vendettas tend to use words as a weapon in a cage match that everyone within their readership can access and take sides on. I’m not sure how much the characters actually learn and grow throughout their experience, but it’s cathartic to see them team up rather than go at each other’s throats.
My recommendation
I recommend Breaking News to young journalists who love a simple mystery, an enemies to friends storyline, and school-based conflicts that can put your own school gossip, and those who spread it, into perspective. Breaking News is a breezy read with somewhat low steaks and likable yet flawed characters. I do wish there was more character development beyond their professional endeavors. I think the excerpt-based narrative structure definitely limits what we can learn about them. But at the same time, it keeps you interested and reading on as we’re presented with the story through a collection of pieces that, when put together, helps to unravel this simple and relatable mystery.
My rating
An interview with Frank Morelli
What is your writing background? Do you have any journalism experience like the kids in the book?
When I was a young child, I used to be really into video games, and I used to constantly critique the storylines of old school Nintendo games until I eventually rewrote them and stored my notes in a small piggy bank on my desk. I’ve been writing stories ever since, but it wasn’t until I became a teacher at the age of 23 (that was 20 years ago) that I started to seriously consider writing novels as a career choice.
I actually went to college with all intentions of becoming a pediatrician, but then I joined the staff of the college newspaper, and I was hooked. I rose in the ranks to news editor, then editor-in-chief, and then I started covering sports for local newspapers. Eventually, I found myself at a Baltimore Ravens game covering a professional event for NBC Sports.
All of those fond experiences I had as a young, budding journalist definitely provided inspiration for the storyline and characters you see in Breaking News. They were also the first steps in beginning to hone my craft.
The story is set at a gifted school. How does the intelligence level of the students play into the story as a whole?
Setting the story in an ultra-progressive, college-minded, hall of knowledge allowed me to ramp up the aspirations of my characters in that they are so focused on their chosen career paths and are already in the process of perfecting their chosen crafts at extremely early ages. I’m not sure that says a whole lot about the intelligence level of my characters, or of the intelligence levels of students who do or do not attend a school like Ridgewood Arts & Tech, but it does make a statement on clarity.
Knowing what you want to achieve and doing everything in your power to get there. My characters in Breaking News certainly possess that clarity in setting goals which gave me an opportunity in the novel to explore how this type of intrinsic motivation could be used for good but also for evil.
Who is your favorite character in the book?
I absolutely love Liberty Lennon. Good old Libs. She was by far the character I had the most fun writing but also proved to be the most challenging in terms of perfecting her voice. Liberty is eclectic and tough, and she goes after what she wants with everything she has in the tank, but she’s also sensitive and humorous and even awkward at times.
I had to pair up with a few other writers and even some of my middle school students to help guide me towards an authentic voice. I think, with their help, I was able to bring Liberty Lennon to the page in three-dimensional glory, and her presence is what makes this story move and shake. In many ways, she’s the straw that stirs the drink.
What was the most fun part of writing this book?
Since Breaking News is basically a collection of various forms of primary documents served up to the reader for study, I spent a great deal of time trying to develop a believable and digestible pattern of documents that fit the given characters and effectively told the story.
It was so much fun, y’all. Jumping from a chapter written like a journal entry to a chapter written like a news article to a chapter written like a page of field notes all in the same day was so exciting for me as a writer. I’m the kind of person who likes variety in all of its forms, so feeling like I was never trapped inside a traditional narrative box was extremely refreshing. I hope my readers have the same experience.
There’s a mystery element to the story as well. Was this part of the original concept, or did this develop later?
The mystery element of Breaking News was the original idea that sparked the rest of the book. It was the thread upon which I was able to weave the remaining structure of the story.
In fact, the original story plan was for Breaking News to be a pretty straightforward, narrative-style mystery for middle grade readers. When I added the wrinkle of telling the story almost completely in primary documents, the whole project transformed into something much more complex and enjoyable. It gave the story depth and invited the reader to participate in the action, which I think is one of the hallmarks of an enjoyable novel.
There’s a science versus art rivalry going on, just as there’s a big press vs. small press rivalry. Which sides are you on, if any? Which publication would you choose to write for?
OMG, I love this question and the fact that you noticed these rivalries taking shape in the novel! I’m definitely not a numbers guy, so the School of Arts at Ridgewood would definitely be my home. However, my experience as a journalist proved to me the importance of responsible reporting and simple truth.
The last few years on Earth have also made these points abundantly clear. For that reason, I’d probably find myself writing for the Ridgewood Roar (the school’s official newspaper) as opposed to Liberty’s indie publication The Rebel Yell, only I’d never stand for an editor-in-chief who’s not doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done. I’d have taken some kind of action before I found myself mired up in a scandal the way my characters do in Breaking News.
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The kids go at each other via their writing. What keeps the faculty from censoring them?
Great question. As a teacher, it has been my experience that teachers go to great lengths to give their students autonomy. At a school like Ridgewood A&T, where students are expected to operate on nearly an adult level, that autonomy is even greater.
I felt that a student like Tony Ravello, writing for the official school newspaper, would have to walk a tighter line than an indie pioneer like Liberty Lennon. So, I had to take that into account as I wrote both of their articles.
Readers will probably notice that Liberty takes many more blazing shots at Tony than Tony is able to dish back and that Tony is often using language to mask his insults behind reporting. In reading countless real-world “news” stories over the past few years, I noticed this trend happening more than I would have liked. Therefore, I felt it needed to find its way into the story.
The book is a collection of articles and recordings from the various reporters. How challenging was it to tell a story from such a limited viewpoint?
In a word: extremely.
When I was building the story, I actually pulled apart the various threads of documents and tried to write them as much as possible as individual narratives. There are so many tiny details and small threads I needed to be mindful about and so many potential spoilers that I had to find ways to mask unless I wanted them to put a basic end to the story only half way through. That said, the challenge of trying to connect all of these puzzle pieces made the job of writing Breaking News one of the most enjoyable writing experiences of my life.
The characters take their jobs so seriously. Do you think they will all end up in the journalism field?
That’s a tough question. I think they all have their sights set on becoming journalists or investigators, and I think they all have the talent necessary to get them there. None of my characters are lacking in intrinsic motivation or confidence either, so I think it is very likely they could succeed in becoming what they want to be.
I use the word ‘could’ here because life is a fickle thing. It changes. It gets harder. New people come into our lives. Old friends disappear. Our tastes change.
Like I said, I once thought I’d be running my own pediatric practice by this point in my life. I also learned that I’m basically afraid of blood, so you can never really predict where your life will take you if you’re living it the right way.
I think this applies to my characters in Breaking News as well. I’m certainly rooting for them to become the ace journalists they think they want to be, but I’d also tell them to take their time. Let life unfold. Learn about themselves and their true passions before they dive into something they’ll spend the rest of their lives doing.
What’s next for you?
Currently, I’m writing the first book in a new young adult horror/true crime series that takes place in a small patch of Central Pennsylvania coal mining country that’s had a mine fire raging underground since the early 1960s. The story is told from the perspectives of three different characters who all basically hate each other, and one ruthless podcast host who ignites the sort of fire in her high school that can’t be extinguished with water and gets even hotter when one of the three narrators goes missing without a trace. I can’t wait to share it!
In between writing sprints on this new novel, I’ve also been assisting in developing my debut novel, NO SAD SONGS, into a feature film with the hopes that we’ll get out of this Covid mess we’re in so we can start shooting later this year.
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