Cruel Summer won the Honorable Mention Award in the Young Adult–Social Issues category in 2021 Readers' Favorite International Book Award Contest! Readers' Favorite recognizes Cruel Summer by Bernard Jan in its annual international book award contest, currently available at Amazon here. The Readers' Favorite International Book Award Contest featured thousands of contestants from over a dozen countries, ranging from new independent authors to NYT best-sellers and celebrities. Readers' Favorite is one of the largest book review and award contest sites on the Internet. They have earned the respect of renowned publishers like Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins, and have received the “Best Websites for Authors” and “Honoring Excellence” awards from the Association of Independent Authors. They are also fully accredited by the BBB (A+ rating), which is a rarity among Book Review and Book Award Contest companies. Readers' Favorite receive thousands of entries from all over the world. Because of these large submission numbers, they are able to break down their contest into 140+ genres, and each genre is judged separately, ensuring that books only compete against books of their same genre for a fairer and more accurate competition. They receive submissions from independent authors, small publishers, and publishing giants such as Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, with contestants that range from the first-time, self-published author to New York Times bestsellers like J.A. Jance, James Rollins, and #1 best-selling author Daniel Silva, as well as celebrity authors like Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty), Henry Winkler (Happy Days), and Eriq La Salle (E.R., Coming to America). “When the right books are picked as winners we pay attention. We will be spreading the word about Readers' Favorite.”—Karen A., Editor for Penguin Random House Readers' Favorite is proud to announce that Cruel Summer by Bernard Jan won the Honorable Mention Award in the Young Adult–Social Issues category. You can learn more about Bernard Jan and Cruel Summer at Reader's Favorite where you can read reviews and the author's biography, as well as connect with the author directly or through their website and social media pages. “Bernard did a wonderful job of creating a beautifully written and compelling story that is very descriptive so that the reader feels immersed in the story. I enjoyed the detailed skateboarding stunt instructions at the start of each chapter. His characters were brilliantly written and very compelling.”—Rolanda Lyles for Readers' Favorite Please check out Cruel Summer at BookAwards.Com. Thank you. BJ Subscribe to my mailing list. Follow me on Twitter. Original post: https://www.bernardjan.com/post/readers-favorite-honorable-mention-award-for-cruel-summer

It is not my right to say that I have come to conclusions about everything in life. However, there is a thing that keeps me always alert about relationships. It is a simple but very delicate thing called trust. There is always a part of our heart that goes with the person we trust to. Here I do not mean only our life partner or friends. Our siblings, parents, blood relatives, and all people we have known for the longest time could be the people we end up concealing our feelings from. Things like we crave to share, meanwhile realizing they will misunderstand us. Ironically, we trust our feelings or thoughts to some strangers on social media by sharing Instagram stories about our state of mind, composing heartfelt posts on Facebook, or via other means of social communication. Some of us block a family member on social media in the first place just because we do not want to explain the reasons why we do not trust them. Sometimes, the people we care about the most turn out to be the people we cannot wholly trust. Just think about it.

The change I want to make A ‘nation' is a conviction of our own making. It was a specification of the territory owned by a particular ruler. Later, developing democracies in the eighteenth century and onward adopted the concept of a nation for administrative purposes. Then the passport was introduced in 1540 in England. Border Security lines were developed the world over. Every country established its own visa center and determined qualifications for a “foreigner” to visit their country. We are all stuck, physically, socially and psychologically within the boundaries of our respective nations. Only a small fraction, the educated rich, of a nation can afford to visit other nations due to the strictness in the issue of passport and visa to the people. A poor woman born in the slums of Iran, for example, has a paltry chance of getting a visa to Finland, whose numerous lakes may inspire her to write a poem. Thus, the change I wish is that all nationally imposed barriers must be removed to progress towards a global village. A country's citizen must be able to travel from one country to another as freely as she moves between two destinations within her own country. Why should we restrict ourselves in physical movement when the Earth is willing to offer us much more: diverse landscapes; different people and their cultures; a range of animals, birds and fish that make up our ecosystem; man-made monuments, and top rated educational institutions? How? Removing the movement barrier. When my family applied for a Schengen Visa from India to visit Ireland on a vacation, we were asked to show financial capabilities, travel insurance, accommodation arrangements, and a letter of permission from my parents' employers. Had there been so many formalities at the time of Marco Polo or Vasco Da Gama, would they have discovered the New World? As great men traveled, great ideas moved with them. Exquisite landscapes have been inspiring writers since times immemorial. In 1907, about 300 students from French-annexed Vietnam went to Japan to study the Confucian Culture, and acquire modern education to resolve their nation's issues. Who is to say that there cannot be more Vasco da Gamas and Marco Polos? We may just be limiting the extent of development of the human capabilities by complicating the movement of human beings on mother Earth. Thus, all Governments should remove barriers stopping their law abiding citizens, be it urban or rural, from travelling by all modes of transport, including by foot. This would be the operation of the Freedom of Movement in a global arena. Removing the educational barrier. Being a high school grader of a school in rural Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh, India), the possibility of studying for a degree in the World's top institution- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge seems as far away from me as India is from the U.S. At least two reasons can be given in favour of my argument: 1. The Movement barrier, as described above 2. On visiting the website of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I learnt that most courses I am interested in require me to have studied both mathematics and biology till twelfth grade. However, almost all junior colleges (11th and 12th grades) in Vijayawada offer only math or, only biology streams. This shows that the Indian educational system does not support its students to pursue studies abroad and are neither flexible with the subjects they offer. Given that the top Indian University, I.I.T Bombay ranks only 179 in the World University rankings 2018, this may be detrimental to the potential and interests of the Indian Youth. Resolving this drawback is the responsibility of the Government. The junior schools and colleges must accommodate a diverse range of subjects, suiting the Graduate courses taught in top universities of the World. In fact, every college in the World must undergo this transformation to ensure that the best students study in the best universities. That is true equality of status and opportunity. Conclusion I believe that the World can be made a better place by the simple act of sharing it more equitably as described above. This would also make countries less selfish and more humanitarian.

The smoke burned my nose and eyes as I sat barefoot on the small alleyway behind our house. I was shaking, my small hands clenched together in fear as my mother stared at me, eyes filled with a concoction of emotions. She sat with her back up against the front of the red minivan as she started on another cigarette. As she flicked away the glowing embers, I noticed her hands were also trembling. I think about moments before. My mother had burst into my bedroom, I witnessed a side of her I had never seen before she began screeching about how she didn't want me anymore. How much trouble I had caused her and that she was bringing me back to my father's house. To cast me from her life forever. I could feel my heart crumbling in upon itself and before I realized what was happening I flew down the stairs and out the door. I had no inkling about where I was going, especially without any shoes. Yet, I raced down the block, my phone in hand poised to call anyone that could be of aid, my heart was pounding and my face streaked with tears. Around the corner, I saw mother whisking the minivan down the street approaching me. I panicked hoping for the opportunity to flee or hide. I did neither. Instead, stood frozen in the middle of some stranger's yard. She took the corner hard and I heard the distinct screech of the tires as Mom stopped the van next to the curb getting out of the car. She rushed towards me in a flurry of hatred, gripping my arms, pulling me towards the van violently. My body was racked with sobs as I mustered the strength to try and resist her grip when she finally pushed me into the car, I could do nothing but wail in the back seat. We drove off, stopping in the parking lot of a run down drug store. My mind was ablaze with the understanding that my own mother wanted to be rid of me, relinquishing me to my father, never to see my siblings again. My mother doesn't want me and that she might have finally lost it. My mother doesn't want me. My mother doesn't want me. It played over and over again and soon I began to say these words aloud. Could she really discard of me easily? Had our relationship had always been shallow, strictly on the surface? What I did know was the there was no going back to a normal "mother and daughter" relationship. Maybe a new barrier that could never be broken down. Coming back from the store, I was jerked from my thoughts when mom opened up the car door and a new package of cigarettes. Lighting her cancer stick she sat, dragging in her calming poison and I began to scream. Telling her that if she left me I would never want to come back, but she remained silent. I never stopped crying for a second to tell her how terrified I actually was. The panic that she was going to bring me back to my father's house. To the place where I would have to explain why I had no shoes, why I couldn't stop blubbering, why I would never see my mother again. For several minutes we sat there in the weed-infested parking lot. Her cigarette smoke was beginning to infecting the air outside of the van. And without even so much as a glance over the shoulder at me, she began driving back towards the yellow house. I was taken aback when she turned into the driveway and put the car in park. Still shocked that she actually brought me back to the house I had no idea what to do. I got out of the van, through the still wide open door and up the stairs to my room. There I sat on the bed, my arms wrapped around my legs as I began to shiver. I rocked myself back and forth to sooth the emotions that stirred within me. Minutes passed when suddenly I heard the sounds of footsteps on the stairs. I knew it was mother, but that didn't stop me from flinches at every step she took in my direction. She told me to come outside with her, and I did. There we were. I listened to her sorry attempt to apologize, her explanation about the contents of a letter. A letter that told her of the amounts of money she had to pay to my father; a child support bill that drove her to near madness. But to me, I saw it as where my mother would rather choose money over her own child. To her, it was the thing that induced overwhelming emotion that took control and made her execute such rash actions. Could we ever go back to where we had been in our relationship? Of course, things never meant to be said, but maybe they were things that had always been thought. I said nothing but remained stationary, sitting on the ground. My feet raw from running, the dry dead grass scratching at the bottom of my thighs. Attempting to understand her position and reasoning. After she stopped she asked me: “Could you ever forgive me?” my mother voice shook violently on the verge of tears. My eyes were dry, my body drained, my soul empty. I embraced her and said nothing, worrying whether or not the end of the cigarette in her hand was going to burn me.

For three months last winter I stayed at a cold weather shelter (the shelter is opened from end of October to the1st of April.). The people at the shelter had some severe health issue. There were a lot of people there with “severe mental health issues” (if you get SSI or Social Security people with mental health issues are dumped in low-income housing if you don't get a check you are among the homeless.). One pretty young woman who legal name is Ashley, but she went by another name Martha. One cold morning Ashley decided to go outside barefoot and with no coat on. Another woman named Linda used to live under a bridge when the shelter was closed. Another homeless person named Mike (we called him chemical mike), all he would talk about is all the investigations into chemical leaks in the area. Another homeless person was Dan. Dan was a veteran who drank a lot. Dan was a savant when it came to music. Dan could tell you the name of a song, its artist, the year the song came out, and where it when to on the charts, just from listening to a couple of notes of a song. Because Dan drank a lot he ended up in hospital a lot (suicide attempts). You had to leave the shelter by 7 am. Dan would go to grocery store and ask people if he could take the carts back to cart area (there was a 25 cent deposit on the carts, when you put the chain back in the cart that was already there the quarter came out. That was Dan's panhandling day). I tried to help Dan out by giving him a couple of dollars (Dan was one of the homeless who weren't motivated to help their situation, the “chronic homeless”. Another young woman cut herself and had to be taken to the hospital. Another person was arguing with staff and not making much sense, he was escorted out of the shelter. There was one homeless person who stated “I can't wait for the shelter to be opened next year”. Shelters are temporary housing, they are not meant to replace regular housing. There was one woman named Lisa who I spent some time hanging around with at the shelter. Lisa had been homeless for six years, she kept all her belongings in a grocery cart and the shelter let her keep the cart there. She told me a story how she got be homeless, her boss where she was working found out the she was sole provider for her and got her fired just because he thought it would be funny. Lisa stated that she wasn't in contact with her family. I liked Lisa a lot. One night she had breathing problems, and was taken to the hospital. Lisa had no other person to call a friend, she stayed to herself. I like Lisa a lot (and due to my proclivity for the downtrodden) I went up to see Lisa in the hospital. One day I brought her clothes, and her bags on another day. She was to have a follow up visit with a doctor once she left the hospital, however Lisa had no money, no insurance, and no way to get to the doctor's. After the shelter closed on April 1st Lisa went to live under a bridge. Several other homeless people followed her. The bridge was next to police station. Several fights broke out among the other homeless people and the police eventually ran off everyone who was living under the bridge. At this time I was working two jobs and living in my car. One job was working in another state (Winchester, VA) after work I would drive to the bridge where Lisa was staying and would give her money for food. I had it, she didn't and because of the way I feel about her I could just let her starve. One time when I went to the bridge where Lisa was staying I asked her if she wanted to go on a date to a fast food restaurant just up the street from where she was staying. Lisa stated that the last time she left her belongings unattended she ended up getting in trouble. I also ended up getting Lisa a bracelet. I always told Lisa that I would get both of us out of homelessness (I really wanted to, I wouldn't have minded spending the rest of my life with her.). It didn't quite work out that way. A former policeman who is now a social worker helped get Lisa into low income housing and I eventually ended up in a second floor apartment that I had to give up a couple of weeks later because of breathing problems. I qualified for food stamps when I was unemployed and I went to a food pantry. I ended up donating the food to the shelter. This was my way of give back to the people who have helped me. Any little thing I could do to help out. In the time since, I have developed some health problems (I had to give up a couple of jobs because of them.). There was one time I donated food to the shelter, that I also gave them a knitted scarf to give to Lisa, I hoped she enjoyed it (It was around Valentine's day and I considered it a Valentine's gift to Lisa.). Lisa if you are reading this just know that I love you.

Long ago, my health became detrimental to normal life. First intermittent, now it's more often having escalated at a city shelter. I could no longer continue to work or finish my university studies pending health changes. Shelter food made me choke, vomit or sent me to the loo. It affects me daily. Every meal is sheer torture: I never know if I'll keep it down. A fluoroscopy confirmed that frequent up-chucking has narrowed and scarred my esophagus irreversibly. These dark times must pass. Like a boa constrictor who regurgitates barely-digested animals complete with that sticky gelatinous saliva, my choking is a lengthy painful process. Unfortunately, my constant throwing up isn't seen as an ingenious way of avoiding danger. The turkey vulture purposefully pukes up an entire stomach's wing-heavy contents, so that a rare predator will turn away from the maggot-infested stinky shit and rotting carcasses. My purging is just plain embarrassing and uncontrollable. Like boas who feed on rodents, songbirds, lizards and other small mammals, my normal diet is varied. My favorite meal is fish/seafood, rice/risotto and grilled vegetables. I like chicken, beef, lamb, and pork but can't consume these proteins without painful hard swallows. I can relate to captive boas prone to Inclusion Body Disease characterized by chronic regurgitation and abnormal painful postural positions: their challenges are like mine with Eosinophilic Esophagitis and other serious ills. Like a non-venomous boa, I wrap my coils around my faith. With God around me, I trust that things will improve henceforth. Also coiling myself around my friends, church family and sister, they act as the editors of my life and writings. Like the monogamous vulture, I'm fiercely loyal to those I love. Now others need to stick by me through thick and thin. Dark days must soon pass. Like boas whose habitat is threatened, so is mine, as Toronto's housing crisis means rising costs and limited affordable accessibility. As boas have adapted their perambulation to a straight line, I adjust to the times. Extinction threatens vultures too: they are poisoned by eating dead livestock given medication toxic to them. Shelters have fed me food months-to-a-year-beyond-expiration dates, poisonous to my now-delicate system. By picking dead carcasses clean, unsuspecting environmentalist turkey vultures are on clean-up and recycling duty to prevent the spread of disease. Their acute sense of smell has helped gas companies detect gas leaks as vultures circled attracted to the smell of gas also found in dead animals. Concerned with the environment, I enter contests funding tree plantings, clean-ups, and literacy programs. When migrating or searching for food, vultures congregate in ‘kettles' flocks of several hundred. I feed off the Salvation Army Bible study groups, kettle-crazed too. Like a baby boa, I was immediately independent, somehow discerning appropriate food without instruction. According to my father, I was ‘contrary' from birth refusing to drink my ‘milkies' and spewing up formula. My parents fed me pediatrician-recommended melted ice-cream. Somehow, I survived my first year, lactose intolerance then unknown. Again, I puke up constantly: it's hard to get nutrients into me. I'm not like others. I never thought as others do. Research is in my blood. An independent thinker, I can figure out most things with little or no instruction. Nowadays, Google becomes my first line of defense when faced with an unknown. Similar to boas and turkey vultures I hiss if threatened or encountering social injustice or iniquities upon the vulnerable. My sometimes-biting words are intended to propel others to act. Now I observe people's movements and utterances. Like an eagle-eyed vulture, I wait for the next juicy story. I write stories for contests. I may win one or not. But either way I'm the better for honing my observational, research and writing skills. Contests keep me alive. Everyday I write to achieve self-imposed entry deadlines. Too busy to worry about all the exigent conditions around me, including my own life's horrors, I focus elsewhere. Dark periods will lift someday. Till then, I keep my mind active even when my body fails me. Sometimes I write in floods like the expulsion of a boa's or vulture's stomach contents. Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness. Other times I hover, searching for words. Like a vulture circling its prey from high to low altitudes, I scavenge for details to fuel my stories by people-watching. My prey is not physically dead. Yet like the city's forgotten vulnerable many are dead in prospects, motivations, hopes and dreams. Like the turkey vulture circling overhead, I hope for that tasty tidbit. Rather than with menacing size, I want my writings to stand out shining a light on social injustice. I want to change minds - ‘What ifs” to ‘right now.' I'm different. Boa-Turkey-Vulture Me.

Three days. That's all it had taken for my luxury life to come to an abrupt end. That's all it had taken for my parents to break up. For them to become divorced. For them to move into separate houses. For me to never be in the same house as both of them ever again. Three days, seventy-two hours, four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes. You would not think so much could happen in such a short amount of time. It all started when I heard the screaming. The shouts that echoed through the narrow hallways of our two story house. The shouting was quiet at first, more like two people trying to talk at once. I thought that my parents must just be having their weekly debate on who was making dinner or who was going to drop me off at practice. They always fought about silly things. I never thought once about their fighting back then. Their constant bickering was just part of our lifestyle. Why should an argument end any different this time? However, this time, the argument was prolonged for much longer than usual. About 10 minutes into the argument, I could begin to make out most of the words from my bedroom doorway. I was slowly trying to inch closer to the stairway without making any noise. I did not want them to know that I was eavesdropping, but I had a feeling they knew that I could hear them. “I had told you! What? Only like, a thousand times by now! I can not pay the taxes if you don't make enough money for me to pay them!” I could hear my mom snapping at my dad. “How am I supposed to make enough money to pay for the taxes and your endless shopping sprees? Don't you know that there are more people than just you in this household?” My dad snapped back. They had been fighting over taxes the whole time. But, once they finished their argument over taxes, even though neither one was happy, they moved on to other topics. Like me. Their house. Their marriage. Who will get the house? Who will make the money? When will the child, me, come to visit? None of the questions made sense to me. Unless, the one thing that I dreaded would happen was finally coming true. Divorce. Finally making it to the top of the stairway without making any noise, I sat down on the top step and thought about what I just found out. I did not even bother listing to the rest of their conversation. The last thing I heard was “I'll call the lawyer tomorrow,” and the sound of my dad slamming the front door. It's been three days since my dad left and within that time, they had gotten divorced and my dad had moved out. I've spent most of the time in my room, eating junk food and watching videos on my tablet. When I was not being lazy and sulking over what had happened, I was contemplating what I would say to my dad when I saw him next. Would I be snotty and tell him that I would never forgive him? Or, should I forgive him and try to keep in touch? I was so busy trying to decide what to say that when the time came for me to see him again on that third afternoon after the divorce, I still did not know what to say. I only knew one thing. He was my father and no matter what happens, he still will be. I should not hold a grudge against him even if it was his fault. I was brought into this world because of him. I still wanted him to be a part of my world, even if we no longer lived under the same roof.

It all began along a vibrant street, blossoms everywhere, foliage scattered all around, the brisk frost felt so quiescent, so serene to my soul. How amazing the sky with spiraling cotton clouds, the grass with dew sparkling like diamonds. This divine art of nature tranquilized the mind and body of pedestrians. I was flabbergasted by the nature that I forgot to notice something. Something horrendous indeed. Standing across the street, under the umbrella of sunrays, were four kids with four bags but with “two different stories”. Two kids pale as they seemed, stood in quietude like a phantom, lost in their ocean of thoughts with cries of hopelessness coercing them to drown in abyss. With ceaseless search for hope in their eyes but seemed that destiny stabbed them in the back each time they combated to attain their dream. This never gave them the intrepidity to standup afresh. Their legs quivered, dreams faded and despair engulfed them, compressing them under a state of bewilderment. They knew not whether their future existed, while holding a rugged, patched bag gathering garbage from the surface which enveloped them. While the second story comprised not of rueful souls, bleeding hearts, sorrowful smiles, gloomy eyes and unforgettable tragedies but it accompanied gladsome smiles, blissful lives, faithful hearts and buoyant eyes. The two kids in this tale possessed school bags and books, wore uniform and steadily directed their way towards their school with ambition to strive and chase their aims and dreams. I wish to see the spark of hope in their eyes, in the eyes of the hopeless and grieved ones. I wish to replace garbage bags with school bags, trash with books and brooms with pencils. I wish to see grinning souls and auspicious smiles, instead of lachrymose eyes under the shadows of terror and agony. I wish to glorify each melancholic soul with a resolute vision to thrive and carve their destiny. And I wish them to love life and cherish it like the staunch, enthusiastic children. This example doesn't only represent those four kids but makes us realize how millions of innocent and naive souls kill their dreams, bury their futurity and abolish their destiny due to the lack of opportunities and chances bestowed upon them. This is what I hope to achieve in my lifetime; to make this a “single story” of hope, struggle and passion for fulfilling their dreams. To win the spark of aspiration and contentment in their eyes, and make them flourish their fate and predetermination. I hope to make them construct a promising future, a prosperous life, a determined generation and an ambitious world! I dream to put together the dispersed puzzle fragments into one intact piece of warm fuzziness and beatitude. And dream to make it a “ONE SIMILAR STORY” for each and every juvenile on this planet by healing their sundered futures with the only key to close this door of inequality and poverty, ‘education'.