KING OF THE CREEPS

Seventeen-year-old Tommy Johnson thinks he’s a creep. His nose is too large, he’s too skinny, too short and his hair frizzes. These are the reasons he’s never dated, held hands or kissed a girl, and now he has to wear glasses. 1963 is shaping up to be the worst year of his life; Tommy might as well throw himself off the George Washington Bridge. On his way there, something makes him stop and look in the window of Grayson’s Music, where he sees an album cover with a guy like him (Bob Dylan), walking arm-in-arm with a beautiful girl. Eureka! If he were a folksinger (or just looked like one), he could get a girl. Tommy goes to Greenwich Village, buys a cheap guitar, learns one chord and meets Angelina. Through a simple twist of fate (or about 20 of them), he ends up on national TV and gets the girl. The head writer for Sponge Bob, among other Nickelodeon shows, Banks has produced a laugh-out-loud, hormone-saturated misadventure. Tommy’s not always the most likable ubergeek antihero, but by story’s end he’s redeemed himself. Inventive and wholly unbelievable, but fun from beginning to end. (Fiction. 12-15)