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Cross Plains Public Library (TX)

"The Institute" by Stephen King

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street near Minneapolis, intruders silently load a boy named Luke Ellis into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke and his friends are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, where the kids are never heard from again.

In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to pulling their special gifts from the children. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute. Fans of Stephen King will enjoy his latest book. You can check it out from the library or from the library’s e-book account through Overdrive/Libby.