Eighth-grader Leon Noside Harris is in the “gifted pool” at school. None of the students like their overbearing teacher, Mrs. Smollet; she seems to want to run the school and their lives, but thinks the gifted will be enriched by doing nonstop crossword puzzles. When given the chance to make an instructional short feature for younger students in Mr. Streich’s Advanced Studies class, Leon decides to make a sex-ed documentary, letting kids know that thinking about sex is normal. Mrs. Smollet finds out and gets Leon suspended for “morals violations.” His friends leak the story to the other students, and Leon becomes a folk hero with great results. In his debut, Selzer manages to capture the voice of a smarter-than-average young teen as he humorously observes his parents, the teachers and his classmates. Pervasive strong language and subject matter bump up the target audience, but there’s definite appeal in the “kid-wins-over-teacher” plot and some real laughs along the way to victory. (Fiction. 13-15)
Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2007
ISBN: 0-385-73369-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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