It Could Be Worse! My School Stinks by Becky Scharnhorst

 

DEAR DIARY,

TOMORROW IS MY FIRST DAY AT MY NEW SCHOOL. MOM AND DAD TOLD ME TO TAKE DEEP BREATHS.

IT ISN'T WORKING.

His seatmate smells like a skunk! His locker mate is a croc. His teacher is a real bear. And the monkey bars are full of... MONKEYS!

The next morning he tries faking red spots all over. But his fake stick-on spots don't fool Mom.

But Wildwood Elementary is a ZOO! A beaver eats his pencils. A gorilla grooms his hair, looking for tasty bugs. Only Mr. Fuzzybottom, a mouse, is friendly. So naturally Mr. Fuzzbottom disappears under suspicious circustances.

I SUSPECT SAMMY THE SNAKE, BUT HE SAYS HE WAS STILL DIGESTING FROM LAST WEEK'S BREAKFAST.

And when our boy tries to make friends by sharing his cupcakes, Charlie the Crocodile bites his finger. But Nurse Molly gives him a bandaid and some good news:

"YOU CAN'T GET RABIES FROM A CROCODILE. I ASKED."

It's a jungle out there, in Becky Scharnhorst's latest, My School Stinks! (Philomel Books, 2021).

Our young scholar finds a way to adapt to his new school. After all, Betsy the Beaver has stopped chewing up his pencils and just sharpens them for him daily. His class job is cleaning the closet, where he finds dead bugs to trade with Sammy the Snake for all his desserts in the lunchroom.

And Mom and Dad finally believe him when they come to OPEN HOUSE!

Artwork by illustrator Julia Patton backs up the scene at Wildwood Elementary with jolly spot art that pictures the beastly goings-on, and Scharnhorst's Wildwood Elementary School tale provides an introduction to comic scary school stories like the classic The Teacher from the Black Lagoon series.

Pirate Diary--The Diary of Jake Carpenter, Cabin Boy by Richard Platt

For as long as I can remember, I have lived in the village of Holyoak, North Carolina. My life is to change, for I am to go to sea. My father wants me to study medicine, but believes I should see more of the world first. Thus, I am to become a SAILOR, at least for a while.

His plan is that I should join his brother Will, who is already a a seaman. Will told me of sea monsters, mermaids, and islands of ice. He has seen hurricanes and escaped from pirates. And I am to see it all for MYSELF!

And see it all he does, and much more, does Jake, much more!

To begin, Jake and Will rise with the sun, only to learn that their ship, the Sally Ann, has raised anchor and sailed before sunrise, leaving Jake and Will stranded.

There is only one ship in port needing seaman, The Greyhound, a sorry sight, but the only choice, and they sign up to sail with the gnarly old Capt. Nick. Immediately, Jack is put to work mopping the decks, for Will tells him that if the boards get dry the ship will leak and sink right away. Jake is already homesick for his cows and chickens, but he is soon pressed in the tasks of loading boxes and barrels into the hold and trying to learn the names of the sails and parts of the ship. He is befriended by the rather wretched Cook's Boy, who promised to keep Jake well fed on scraps in return for Jake's teaching him his letters.

This seemed like a good deal at the time, but after my first meal, my mind was changed. I had food, but I could not tell what it was and ate little.

And Jake's first voyage gets only worse as time goes by. Captain Nick's vessel is an outlaw ship, unwelcome at any port because he is known to sail before dawn to avoid paying fees, and he is a cruel master, lashing his men for the most minor offenses.

When Jake lets a bucket fall into the sea, Captain Nick orders him lashed, and when Will offers to take the lashes himself, the enraged captain order twice as many lashes for Will and leaves him adrift in a leaky boat. Terrified, Jake watches his uncle rapidly disappear in the Greyhound's wake.

But Jake's plight soon worsens when the ship is boarded by true pirates. The Greyhound's crew offer no resistance, believing that being the pirate's captain can be no worse than Captain Nick and soon all are bound over to the service of the pirate band headed by the notorious Henry Jennings. Seaman Jake finds himself now the pirate captain's cabin boy, fearful of never seeing his home and father again.

And in truth Jake Carpenter will learn much, much more of the life of real pirates of the Caribbean before he sees Holyoak, North Carolina again, in Richard Platt's colorful action thriller for middle readers, Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter, Cabin Boy (Historical Diaries) (Candlewick Press). There is plenty of pirate lore and lingo, with cannon-firing, cutlass-welding battles, raging hurricanes, treasure-burying, and more than enough of hanged pirates dangling from gibbets in the port of Charleston for any pirate fan before Jake Carpenter at last sets a happy foot on terra firma in South Carolina.

 Along with the colorful and picaresque pen-and-ink period drawings of Chris Riddell, Platt's well-researched tale of privateers and buccaneers is an absorbing read for adventure-loving middle graders, and the author's extensive appendix which includes a glossary of seafaring and piracy terms, a history of piracy from the Vikings to Somali pirates, and a bibliography of sources. This book is an ideal preliminary read before taking on the Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, Treasure Island. (Dover Thrift Editions) And for those readers whose tastes run to historical side of pirate adventures, author Platt has three other such historical novelettes--Egyptian Diary: The Journal of Nakht (Historical Diaries), Roman Diary: The Journal of Iliona, A Young Slave (Historical Diaries), and Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess

Half-Empty, or Half-Full?The Epic Adventures of Huggie and Stick by Drew Daywalt

Rain falls on the just and the unjust--and upon the Always-Cheery and the Ever-Grumpy!

What started out with being smooshed in the kids' scruffy backpack turns into a global circumnavigation for a crosspatch toy rabbit improbably named Huggie. Huggie's seen better days, but today is a memorable day for him and his unlikely companion, Stick, a stick with an annoying penchant for hyper-optimism. When the kid's bike hits a big bump, the improbable partners fall out and are left behind to irritate each other through an unlikely adventure.

Stick congratulates himself for breaking his companion's fall. Huggie, however, is less sanguine about the landing.

“Dear Diary, There’s a stick up my butt.”

And so this unlikely odd-couple buddy road trip begins.

This is their story. It isn't pretty.

The two world travelers are washed out to sea, stuck on a desert island surrounded by sharks, and meet up with pirates who make them walk the plank. Stick does a jolly cannonball off the plank, while Huggie just gives the buccaneers the hairy eyeball. They get swallowed by a shark, meet up with wild men in the rain forest who want to use Stick for a blowpipe, hitch a ride in a kangaroo's pouch, and pursue any conveyance to get back home.

Stick slept through the llama ride, the train ride, two bus rides, the small plane trip, and 200 miles on the back of a determined Chihuahua..

In the style of his best-selling The Day the Crayons Quit, author Drew Daywalt has penned another another rollicking epistolary road trip tale, The Epic Adventures of Huggie and Stick (Philomel Books, 2019). This hilarious story is a surefire giggle generator, especially if read aloud by someone who loves to do voices for these comical characters. Artwork by David Spencer is also lively and right on target for this age level. Says School Library Journal, "Spencer's illustrations are sharp and polished, while his cartoon-heavy character design keeps the tone comedic."

Dorks on Tour! Dork Diaries Tales from a NOT-SO Best Friend Forever by Rachel Renee' Russell

I'm going to have the MOST. EXCITING. SUMMER. EVER!!

SQUEEEEEEE!!

Nikki's band, I'm Not Actually Certain Yet, has won the audition to open for the super-popular Bad Boyz for a month-long coast-to-coast tour. They'll fly with the band, rehearse with the band, and stay in posh hotels where the Bad Boyz will be! It's a double-SQUEEEEEE occasion.

What could possibly go wrong?

Enter Nikki's arch-frenemy MacKenzie Hollister, who declares that her "daddy" will buy out the building where Fuzzy Friends
Animal Rescue is located unless Nikki agrees to let her audition with them and the Bad Boyz at least once on the tour. Nikki reluctantly agrees for the sake of the animals, and soon finds that MacKenzie has finagled herself into an internship with the tour and--worst of all--she will be Nikki's roommate for the tour.

I handled this situation in a very MATURE and PRIVATE manner.

I very calmly walked to the nearest restroom. Then I stepped inside the nearest stall.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

But the show must go on, in Rachel Renee' Russell's latest installment in her best-selling, Dork Diaries 14: Tales from a Not-So-Best Friend Forever (14) (Aladdin Books, 2019). In this entry in her mega-popular middle-reader series, Nikki deals with the warring boy band, who have their own ego clashes, her fatigue from late-night shows and even later flights, dodging flocks of screeching NickChicks, early morning publicity appearances, and the meanest, most slovenly roommate ever. Will Nikki keep her own band working together smoothly while soothing the crotchety boy band member and working out a way to save Fuzzy Friends from the wrecking ball?

Teenage Dream or NIGHTMARE?

In this recent sequel, there's plenty of giggling and niggling among the main characters, with fun quizzes for middle-reader participation and illustrations by Russell's daughter, Nikki Russell, who provides scads of black-line cartoons on most pages, as this newest top-seller continues to make the world safe for DORKS. Middle readers have no complaints about these books except that they read them so fast!

And to do due diligence to dorky guys, Rachel Renee Roberts has a series just for middle-school boys, The Misadventures of Max Crumbly Books 1-3: The Misadventures of Max Crumbly 1; The Misadventures of Max Crumbly 2; The Misadventures of Max Crumbly 3.

No Place Like Home: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball by Jeff Kinney

It all begins when the Heffley family receives a letter from a lawyer, informing them that they have been left an inheritance from Great-Aunt Reba.

Their big mistake is choosing to spend it on home improvements.

Dad wants a bigger hot tub. Greg, Manny, and Rodrick, tired of tangling legs in Dad's hot tub, vote for a backyard pool. Mom pulls rank, declaring that she's the only one who even sent Great Aunt Reba a thank you-note, and calls first dibs on a kitchen re-do. But like most improvement plans, the bigger kitchen grows exponentially into THE ADDITION.

Many mishaps ensue but at last the addition is done. But then...

The building inspector came out to check the framing of the addition. And when he DID, he found out the whole structure was too close to Mrs. Tuttle's property line by about three FEET. The whole structure had to come DOWN.

Not to be deterred, Mom, filled with House Beautiful lust, finds the perfect new place. All they have to do is repair the new hole in the wall in the old house and find a buyer for it.

What could possibly go wrong?

The hapless Heffleys find their windfall to be their downfall. They manage to find a customer for their house, but the buyer has toddlers and insists that Dad's hot tub has to go, and the construction company's crane operator manages to drop the hot tub right through the roof.

There's probably a LESSON I could learn from the whole experience... like "be happy with what you've got." But that's the kind of corny stuff they put in books for little kids.

Wrecking Ball (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 14) (Amulet Books, 2019) is Jeff Kinney's fourteenth graphic novel about the hilarious. if unfortunate, Heffleys, and Kinney's comic characters continue to call forth the kind of belly laughs for kids and grown-ups alike that boost his books into best-selling territory.

Pair this one with Greg's, er, best friend Rowley's own book, Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal. (Abrams, 2019). Says Kirkus Reviews, "The character work is terrific. The fact that Kinney can expose new facets of his characters this deep into the series is a credit to the property . . . A pleasant twist on a sturdy franchise."

Spreading Her Wings: Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

19th DAY OF SEPTEMBER

I am delivered! My mother and I have made a bargain. I may forego spinning as long as I write this account for Edward. My mother is not much for writing but has it in her heart to please Edward, now he is gone to be a monk.

21st DAY OF SEPTEMBER

Something is astir. I can feel my father's eyes following me about the hall, regarding me as he would a new warhorse or a bull bought for breeding. He asks me questions, the Beast who never speaks to me except with the flat of his hand to my cheek or my rump.

This morning: "Exactly how old are you, daughter? Have you all your teeth? What color is your hair when it is clean?"

Catherine is a spirited lass who avoids needlework whenever possible, and the tangled remnants of her embroidery and spindles are oft found tossed into the privy. Nicknamed Birdy for her chamber filled with singing birds, she loves animals and favors the company of the villagers over learning the duties of a lady of the manor--spinning, weaving, doctoring, accounting, and management skills. But with her two elder brothers away as knights in the king's service and her beloved third brother Edward in a monastery, Catherine's father, a far-from-rich knight, has become aware that his soon-to-be fourteen-year-old daughter is a marriageable commodity and begins to shop her around to the local peerage.

And when a series of lackwit and unappealing suitors appear to audition as her future husband, Birdy hides all day from them in the privy, blacks out her teeth, mutters comments that make her seem a lunatic, and soon sends them packing. At first she assumes the Lord of Lithgow (whom she nicknames "Shaggy Beard"), is trying to arrange a marriage for his son Stephen, but she finds that the true case is much worse.

It is Shaggy Beard himself who wishes to take me for wife! That dog assassin whose breath smells like the mouth of Hell, who makes wind like others make music, who attacks helpless animals with knives, who is ugly and old! I am offered a smelly, broken-toothed old man who drinks too much. I will not consent. I will never consent.

Still the prosperous but supremely undesirable suitor of advanced age and disgusting personal habits continues to dicker tenaciously with her father for her. Catherine's best efforts seem futile. Even running away fails to move her father from making an advantageous deal with the proposed bridegroom. But the year is 1290, and all of her pleas, wit, and spirit cannot dissuade the Beast from making a lucrative deal for his wayward daughter. But fate has something more in store for Birdy, in Karen Cushman's new edition of her Newbery Honor book, Catherine, Called Birdy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Clarion, 2019). Many things have changed since 1290, especially for girls and women, but young teens still chafe against the expectations of parents and society, and fate still favors those who bravely try to make their own way in the social milieu in which they find themselves. This novel of another time has much to say to modern young people about staying true to themselves and to what is right. The coming of age of Catherine, called Birdy, in which the lively main character makes her first non-self-serving choice, is a funny, hopeful, and moving read for middle readers just beginning to spread their wings and see the real landscape of life before them.

Karen Cushman is also the noted author of the Newbery Medal book, The Midwife's Apprentice, The Ballad of Lucy Whipple, Alchemy and Meggy Swann and Will Sparrow's Road. (Read my reviews here.)

Rowley's Revenge! Diary of An Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal by Jeff Kinney

ROWLEY: "I wrote the words and drew the pictures all by myself without any help from a grown-up!"

GREG: "Yeah and then totally stole my idea."

ROWLEY: "I hope you think it's good!"

GREG: "Trust me, you won't!"

Despite the many times he's played the fall guy for Greg Heffley, Rowley remains a true friend, and none of the episodes Rowley faithfully records in this new book show Greg as anything but a junior jerk, albeit not a boring one!

Greg is even a jerk about Rowley's "Journal," complaining because Rowley always forgot to draw noses on people.

But then he said my book gave him an idea. Greg said one day he gonna be rich and famous and everyone will want to know his whole life story. And he said I could be the one to WRITE it.

I said I thought that was what your journal was for, and he said it was his autobiography, but my book could be his BIOGRAPHY.

So I'm going to start this book over with a new title and now the main character is gonna be Greg. No one knows him better than ME.

That's for sure!

Greg continues to take advantage of his loyal sidekick, but in Jeff Kinney's newest entry in the his best-selling comic graphic novel series, Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal (Amulet Books, 2019), Rowley does make his case for being an awesome kid who knows how to be a best friend, and that perhaps against all odds, there's hope for Greg. Kirkus Reviews says "The fact that Kinney can expose new facets of his characters this deep in the series is a a credit to the property. Underneath the marketing, the movies, the bookmarks, and the merchandise, the Wimpy Kid books are about a couple of pals figuring themselves out."

Jane Sinner Has Left the Building: Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke

Carol barged into my room as soon as she got home from her youth group.

CAROL: But why do you have to move out? Why won't you stay home and go to school?

JS: Don't tell the parents, but their heavy-handed approach to religion and my inability to fit into their narrow, conservative framework is crushing my delicate and blossoming identity as an autonomous individual.

CAROL: Sorry, what??

JS: They're killing my buzz.

CAROL: But what about me?

JS: You'll get over it.

CAROL: You've changed, Jane.

Poor sweet Carol. She wouldn't know an existential crisis if it punched her in the face.

Jane Sinner, on the other hand, knows an existential crisis when she sees one, and one has punched her in the face.

Along with the usual teen-aged angst, her internal conflict over being an atheist in an evangelical family prompts an impromptu suicide attempt, and her refusal to continue therapy gets her expelled from high school. Now, Jane has a new thought:

Ditching high school five months before graduation isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The only option Jane sees for herself is enroll at Elbow River Community College in their high school completion program--if she can find a way to pay for a place to live near campus.

And then she is recruited by Alexander, a film student who's recruiting a mixed bag of students to participate in an online streaming reality show. All Jane has to do is to live in sleazy communal housing, The House of Orange, compete in endless aimless contests for the prize--Alexander's old car--against Chaunt'Elle, the girl in orange makeup, Marc, a 39-year-old "student" who likes to hit on teen-aged girls, and Robbie, an otherwise seemingly nice guy who seems to be OCD about germs--all the while being filmed and recorded virtually every minute. And Marc steals her food. Of course, if Jane gets voted out, the whole plan is kaput!

And just as she begins to believe that she and Robbie have a nice romance going, he finagles a way to get her voted off the show so he can win. She's got to move out of the House of Orange to... somewhere..., her heart is broken, and finals are coming up.

No stress there, right?

Luckily, Jane has two old friends, Bonnie and Tom, and an (imaginary) psychiatrist with the best shrink name ever, Dr. Freudenschade, on her side.

Jane settled down on Dr. Freudenschade's couch. Her hair is a rat's nest, and her eyes are bloodshot.
JS: Help.
DFS: What's on TV tonight?
JS: That's it? What happened to professionalism?
DFS. You know it was all bullshit anyway. Stop trying so hard.

With much ironic talk about Chicken McNuggets and Twizzlers, theodicies and apologetics, and teen sturm und drang, progress is made toward understanding The Meaning of Life, in Lianne Oelke's first book, Nice Try, Jane Sinner (Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2018). As a smart, savvy, and preternaturally comic protagonist, Oelke's Jane makes her way through her own improbably successful first semester as a semi-college student. Narrated in Jane's diary entries and script-like dialog with her cohorts, this young adult novel has the feel of a day in the life, with dry wittiness and the undercurrent of a plucky heroine feeling her way through her own coming-of-age story in which she learns a Shroedering-esque lesson, that life is, and is not, a reality show. Jane doesn't get it all together, but she's on her way.

Dr. Fraudenschade: I wish you wouldn't put your feet on the table.
JS: Who cares? It's not real.
DFS. It's the thought that counts.
J.S. So how long do I have to keep coming back here?
DFS: What did you expect? That at age eighteen you'd have all your shit together?
JS: Yes.

...Silence.

Retrograde Greg: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School by Jeff Kinney

Grown-ups are always talking about the "good old days" and how things were so much better when THEY were kids.

But I think they're just jealous because MY generation has all this fancy technology and stuff they didn't have.

Lately, Mom's been going around town with a petition to get people to stop using their phones and electronic gadgets for forty-eight hours.

Things have only gotten tougher for middle-school sad sack Greg Heffley. The pig the family acquired in Book Nine, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, is still with them. His table manners are worse than little brother Manny's, but he has learned to walk on his hind legs, dress in Manny's clothes, and go and come so freely that Mom has to fit him with a GPS. Then, when the rates at Leisure Towers go up, Grandpa is forced to move in with the Heffleys for an, er, indefinite stay and picks Greg's room for his own, leaving Greg with a Murphy's choice for a roommate.

There's no WAY I'm sharing the pullout couch with a barn animal.

I ruled out Rodrick's room right away, because he might actually be a step down from the PIG.

So Greg puts his bedroll down on Manny's floor. Manny, seemingly undergoing an interminable toilet-training, is now in the no-pants-after-dinner stage, but his is the best of a bad bunch when it comes to bedrooms.

But those are just the background problems for Greg when Mom gets her quota of signatures and her petition passes at city hall. Now Greg has a device-less Saturday and Sunday to get through as the whole town goes unplugged, retro, back to the 1950s.

But the device-deprived folks in town get in the spirit and decide to put their idle hands to work cleaning up the park over the weekend. Greg and his sidekick Rowley decide to take advantage of the business opportunity and set up a lemonade stand for the sweaty volunteers, but when the customers object to sharing the same glass, they decide to switch to store-bought Fitness Water. When Mom shuts them down, claiming it's "tacky" to sell water to her volunteers, Greg and Rowley are put to work with the "Community Service" orange-jumpsuited juvvies, and the next thing they know they're fugitives from the Girl Scout deputies. Greg rats out the Community Service slackers, and they are hauled off to the hoosegow, but not without some baleful backward looks at Greg the Squealer.

Then Greg drops a toothpaste lid down the drain, and his first tries at plumbing result in a water leak that drips through the living room ceiling. Grandpa offers to drive him in Dad's car for paint to hide the evidence, but only remembers that he lost his license for too many accidents when he has another one. Now Greg is on everyone's hit list. This might be a good time to get out of town, and Greg decides to go on his official class nature week at Hardscrabble Farms after all until the case cools down.

But that's where Greg's problems really begin, in Jeff Kinney's already best-selling laugh-athon, Diary of a Wimpy Kid #10: Old School (Abrams/Amulet Books, 2015). Snickers, giggles, chortles, and flat-out, out-loud guffaws abound in this newest in the killer-diller Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Kinney skillfully juggles his quirky cast of characters--Mom, the perennial family improvement maven, Manny the incontinent, Rodrick, the world's worst defrocked fast-food mascot, Grandpa, the party animal, and even Dad, who turns out to know the secret of Hardscrabble Farms' own legendary bogeyman, Silas Scratch.

Jeff Kinney is surely the modern Mark Twain of middle school adventures. "One of the most successful children's series ever published," says The Washington Post." No joke!

Are We There Yet?: The Long Haul (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) by Jeff Kinney

The last thing I need is to turn into some kind of were-pig, because that could really mess up my dating life.

Mom took a look at my finger, and I could tell she was a little worried. She tried to find an emergency-care place on the GPS, but there was nothing in a fifty-mile radius. But she DID find a VETERINARIAN'S office five minutes up the road. A few minutes later we pulled into the parking lot.

A minute later Mom came back with a clipboard and some paperwork to fill out. All I can say is, I hope this stuff doesn't get filed on my permanent record. because if it comes up later in life, it could be embarrassing.

EMERGENCY PET CARE
Patient Registration

Pet's name: "Greg"
Owner's name: Susan Heffley
Species: Human
Last vaccination: January 12
History of worms? X Yes* (*as a toddler)
Last rabies shot: N/A
Spayed/Neutered? XNo

You'd think I'd get some priority as a human, but I got put behind a gerbil that swallowed a cigarette and a cat with its face stuck in a yogurt container.

Mom has been spending way too much time reading Family Frolic Magazine, and when school's out there's no deterring her plan for a fun-filled family road trip. She's got it all planned, but when the Heffleys stop at a roadside FUN FAIR, toddler Manny wins a piglet, and when the prize piglet tries to escape through the sun roof while Dad is driving and handing at hostile client from work, Greg grabs the pig and gets bitten. And that's the good part of the trip.

As only he can tell it, Jeff Kinney's latest in his best-selling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (Amulet Books, 2014) may be the best Heffley saga yet. Once more the hapless middle child Greg plays straight man to one of the funniest family series of all of literature. (In less than a week, it's already #1 on Amazon's sales of all books!) Car breakdowns, the world's sleaziest motel, a piglet who figures out how to raid the mini-bar, and a series of perfectly normal mishaps take the family on the funniest car trip ever, and when the Heffleys finally limp home, towed by a couple of friendly, non-English speaking hombres, the car's leaking radiator patched together with glue and duct tape, Mom and Dad's credit cards, phones, and clothes supposedly stolen from their locker at Water World, and a pet piglet they can't seem to give away, it looks like home-sweet-home for the Heffleys for a long time.

Trust me, this one is as drop-dead funny as the earlier books, funny enough to make me laugh out loud, in my parka, in my chilly garage, late at night, into my second hour on an exercise bike! Although its target 'tweener audience will undoubtedly devour this one in one sitting, the humor in Kinney's artfully clever stick cartoons and this hilarious but somehow believable tale will tickle the ribs of anyone, kid, parent, or grandparent who has ever gone on an "eventful" family car trip.

Schlimazel Phase: Twerp by Mark Goldblatt

January 11, 1969

My English teacher, Mr. Selkirk, says I have to write something, and it has to be long, on account of the thing that happened over winter recess--which in my opinion, doesn't amount to much. It's not like I meant for Danley to get hurt, and I don't think that what happened was one hundred percent my fault, or even a lot my fault, even though I don't deny that I was there. So I guess I deserved to get suspended like the rest of them.

But now the suspension is over and Selkirk says I've got to write something. I know what's going on. Selkirk thinks that if I write about what happened, I'll understand what happened. Which makes no sense, if you stop and think about it, because if I don't understand what happened, how can I write about it?

I know there's going to be a Julian Twerski in the future that's going to look back and maybe shake his head. (That last sentence should make you happy, Mr. Selkirk.) But when I look back right now, I'm just saying that what happened with Danley Dimmel isn't the worst thing I've done.

As an incentive, Mr. Selkirk offers to substitute Julian's diary for a report on Julius Caesar, and Julian readily agrees, beginning a semester of writing, a first-person stream-of consciousness journaling that recounts the misadventures of Julian (Twerp) Twerski and his friends on the block--Lonnie, their charismatic leader, Quick (because he's slow on the uptake) Quentin, Eric the Red, (because he's a rehead) Howie Wartnose, (because his last name is Wurtzberg), and Schlomo Schlomo (because his mom always calls him home that way.) The gang centers their activities in a scruffy vacant lot they call Ponzini (because it's behind the apartment of Victor Ponzini and because they have to call it something.)

Ponzini is the focal point where most of Julian's misadventures begin.  It's the place where Lonnie taunted him into chucking a rock into an amazingly dense flock of pigeons who have landed there between two rusted out cars.

"C'mon, Julian, chuck a rock."

"You chuck a rock."

"Don't you want to see 'em take off at once?" said Lonnie.

"I might hit one of them," I said.

"C'mon," Lonnie said. "It'll be like a science experiment."

Like most of Lonnie's ideas, it's a bad idea, but despite his own best instincts Julian chunks the rock, hits a pigeon, and is wracked with guilt when the pigeon finally dies. Lonnie's ideas always seem to end badly for the impulsive Julian and the rest of the guys. Quentin gets his eyebrows and most of his hair burned off when the guys pool their leftover Fourth of July fireworks into one big bang. Then Lonnie persuades Julian to ghost-script a letter pitching his love to  Jillian, the girl of his dreams, and with predictable results: Jillian thinks the letter is from Julian and even begins to sit with him at lunch, putting him on the outs with Lonnie. Trying to impress his buddies, Julian smarts off in social studies, not with his regular teacher, Mr. Loeb, who is himself a josher, but the untried intern Mr. Caricone:

It started, I guess, a couple of weeks ago, when he taught us about India.  I like that kind of stuff.... We got real deep into India.

Mr. Caricone began last week's class with the question, "Does anyone remember how the government takes the census in India?"

I called out, "One little, two little, three little Indians!"

The entire class cracked up.

Through it all Julian clings to the belief that, no matter what, he's the fastest kid in the school, until Jillian's family takes in an enormous thirteen-year-old from Guatemala, Eduardo, whose quick moves in games of tag strike fear in Julian as the annual Field Day approaches.  Bad outcomes seem to follow Julian's every move, and as events pile up, one by one his buds start to shun him. When Julian blows a pop quiz at schul,  Rabbi Salzberg sums it up:

"Mazel, by itself, means "luck." Thus, "schlimazel" means "bad luck," the rabbi said.

"Am I a schliemazel?" I asked.

"No, Mr. Twerski, you're just going through a schlimazel phase."

Schliemazel Phase is not a bad term for the temporary insanity that is early adolescence, that critical turning point in the making of the man (or woman), and the key to ending Julian's schliemazel phase seems to be for him to confront his personal responsibility in what happened with Danly Dimmel (a.k.a, Stanley Stimmel) back in December. Julian's last diary entry tells all, in Mark Goldblatt's hit first novel, Twerp (Random House, 2013), with his spot-on depiction of the yin and yang of personal conscience vis a vis group pressure.  Both a drop-dead funny boyhood story and a dead serious coming-of-age novel,  Julian Twerski's self-revelatory diarist holds his own with the great boy characters of literature--Tom Sawyer, Tom Brown, Penrod Schofield, and Holden Caulfield, right up to Jack Gantos' Joey Pigza and various Jacks, and James Patterson's Rafe Khatchadorian. As Kirkus Reviews puts it, "Goldblatt's tale provides a thought-provoking exploration of bullying, personal integrity and self-acceptance."

When I'm Sixty-Four: Heaven Is Paved with Oreos by Catherine Gilbert Murdoch

Darling Sarah!

This journal is for you--isn’t it glorious? I saw it & thought of you instantly! Now you can record all your thoughts & your genius & your experiences-to-come! (And are you going to have experiences!) Someday, when you’re a creaky sixty-three-year-old granny, you’ll read this & remember every one of your marvelous adventures. I am so excited! Have fun writing!

Peace forever—Z

At 14 Sarah can't really imagine having adventures worth  writing about. She and her "pretend" boyfriend Curtis Schwenk hope to turn the skeleton of a calf (now buried in his pasture) into  their first high-school-level state Science Fair Award-winning project, but Sarah is not sure that articulating a skeleton is what her ex-hippy grandmother Z. has in mind for that journal.

In fact, Sarah isn't even sure that Boris the calf is even going to be reassembled.  She and Curtis, who share a fondness for science (and maybe for each other) had decided on their "Brilliant Outflanking Strategy," acting as if they were girlfriend-boyfriend so people would stop asking them if they were, and amazingly it has seemed to work.  It allows them to meet and talk about what they like, go for ice cream together as friend-friend, and greet each other with their special "palm salute," If it weren't for her classmate, Emily, who clearly has her eyes on Curtis, Sarah would be content with their arrangement.  But lately Curtis is even quieter than usual, until at last he does have something to say:

"I want a real girl friend." He wouldn't even look at me.

"Emily," I said.

There was a long silence. "No... but Emily doesn't lie to people. I like that."

"We're not lying," I said finally. "We're outflanking. What's wrong with that?"

"Everything," Curtis said. "And if you don't see that, maybe we shouldn't be doing this anymore. This whole...thing."

Before Sarah can even decide how she feels about Curtis' announcement, Grandma Z drops a bombshell.  She wants to go to Rome, which she visited as a college student, to finish the pilgrimage to the seven churches of Rome she had begun, and she wants Sarah to be her "pilgrim lady companion." Sarah is both intimidated and intrigued with the idea of having her own experiences to write about, and she leaves for Rome, hoping, but without complete success, to forget about Curtis during her adventure.

Rome is an experience, very different from Red Bend, Wisconsin.  Sarah loves her "coffee juice," cappuccino with milk; she doesn't like the cooked egg in the middle of the pizzas: and she loves the colorful old structures, the dark stone churches, and the murals and sculptures inside. But with the pilgrimage to six of the seven churches done, Grandma Z seems to go off the rails.  She spends one day just lying in bed, so that Sarah has to venture out on the Roman streets alone to bring back food. Then, on their last day, Z's sixty-fourth birthday, she insists on sitting beside the Spanish Steps for hours, seemingly just watching the people passing by. She ignores Sarah's pleas to see the last church, and on the way back, she begins to weep and doesn't stop.

Apparently, there is something more than birthday blues going on, a significant story, one of Z's "experiences" formerly unknown to Sarah. And when Z reveals her story, it is one that alters Sarah's understanding of her family and of the truth, even with Curtis, Sarah has that "experience" worth filling her journal, and something to think about as she goes on to high school and what she will make of her life.

Catherine Gilbert Murdock, author of the celebrated and best selling Dairy Queen and its two sequels, returns to the dairy community of Red Bend, Wisconsin, in her forthcoming Heaven Is Paved with Oreos (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), with another down-to-earth but totally absorbing protagonist in Sarah Zorn. Indeed, Murdock brings back D. J. Schwenk, not a beauty queen, but the super-sized athletic heroine and Curtis' big sister whose court is now the basketball sort, to give Sarah some hard-won advice on families and boyfriends and being true to herself as well.  Murdoch is the kind of author with that ability to get the reader inside her quiet but unforgettable characters, to live along with them as the future rushes toward them.  Like D.J. Schwenk, Sarah Zorn is good fictional company for young adult readers trying to figure out what is true and what is good in their lives.

Catherine Gilbert Murdoch is also the author of two wonderful comedic fantasies of the fractured fairy tale persuasion, both with wise and witty teen characters, Princess Ben and Wisdom's Kiss,