title: Jolted: Newton Starker's Rules for Survival
author:  Arthur Slade 
description: Fourteen-year-old Newton Starker is ruled by fear and focused on survival. Over many centuries and uncounted generations, lightning has killed every member of his mothers family. After her death, Newton leaves the protective dome of his family home to attend the Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival in Saskatchewan, where he finds a good friend, a great pet, and more courage than he knew he had. The plot is easy to follow and the many quirky characters add spice tothe third-person narrative, which is interspersed with excerpts from the schools Survival Handbook. Though the central idea of lightning strikes as a family curse or inherited predestination might seem odd to some, this clearly written novel creates a world in which it is believable. Theres also adisingenuous quality about Newton that makes him just right as the hero of a story with a larger-than-life premise. An offbeat, likable novel. Grades 5-7. --Carolyn Phelan
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  [Contents](0671578219_toc.htm)
  
  # CHAPTER NINE
  
  Because the capsule was supported by four separately-controlled vehicles, it
  lurched the last hand's-breadth to the ground. That was still a softer landing
  than many that Slade had made behind professionals . . . and only seconds
  before, he would have traded his hope of salvation for the chance to awaken in
  a hospital, much less to walk away from the capsule. There was a quick-release
  lever in the center of the panel in front of the seat. Slade was still
  searching for it when his rescuers turned the dogs from outside and the walls
  fell away. Slade was surrounded by nymphs on a sunlit meadow.
  
  Slade's first thought was that they were girls and very pretty. A moment's
  further consideration showed that in fact, his four rescuers were women and
  beautifulbut there was a level of truth to the initial impression as well.
  Three of them were dark-haired and stood nearly as tall as the man'