On the second or third day of the manhunt, I was chatting online with a college friend who asked if I was missing journalism, given all the excitement, and I confessed that I was indeed envious of the reporters who were covering the story. But unlike most of my neighbors, I’m a former journalist, so my uneasiness was mixed with a healthy dose of curiosity. That prison is 14 miles from my house, so, like everyone in the region, we were checking the locks on our doors and windows and listening as police helicopters circled each night. What inspired Breakout? Breakout is a fictional story, but it was very much inspired by the real-life prison break at Northern New York’s Clinton Correctional Facility in June of 2015, when two convicted murderers carried out an elaborate escape plot that launched a 23-day manhunt. We recently caught up with Messner to get the story behind the story. The story takes place in a small town in upstate New York, where a recent prison break reveals sharp tensions in the tight-knit community. Kate Messner, author of more than 30 books, including The Exact Location of Home, The Seventh Wish, and the "Ranger in Time" and "Marty McGuire" series, as well as numerous picture books and works of nonfiction, has a new middle grade novel out this June, Breakout, which recently earned an SLJ star.
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