This month's book reviews

A book that tries to uncover
what it takes to make a dork a winner

Sixth grader, Jerry Flack, was in a new school. At his last one, he had hated being labeled the class dork. So now he was trying hard to be cool and not get known as a dork by his new classmates. The best thing he had going for him was his friendship with Brenda McAdams. She was smart and popular with the sixth graders and she admired Jerry for the good qualities she saw in him. Unfortunately, Jerry couldn't shake the image he had of himself as a dork. He wore thick glasses. He wasn't any good at sports. He couldn't ice skate. He had skinny legs. He was afraid to stand up to the class bully. He really liked being a member of the science club. How else could you define "dork?"

Brenda managed to convince Jerry that he should run for sixth grade class president. When the class bully, Glen Marshall, heard that Jerry was running for class president, he decided to run for the office himself. After all, what trouble would a cool guy like him have in defeating a dork like Jerry? Glen figured all he really had to do was use every trick he could think of to make Jerry Flack's dorkiness apparent to everyone.

So most of the plot for "Dork on the Run" is concerned with the campaign for sixth grade class president. Glen Marshall and his fellow bullies run a campaign of dirty tricks. Jerry Flack tried one trick in retaliation and humiliated Glen temporarily. But Jerry felt so bad about it, he decided it wasn't worth being class president if it meant resorting to a campaign of dirty tricks.

Brenda won't let Jerry give up in his campaign, even though he really just wants out of the whole thing. Glen has made Jerry Flack the laughing stock of the whole school. But Jerry figures out how to turn the tables on Glen. To find out how, you need to read the book.

 

Sometimes you read a good book
only after seeing the movie version

Everybody kept telling me I should read Louis Sachar's book "Holes." I picked up the paperback to look at in the bookstore several times. But it just didn't sound interesting to me - a story about boys imprisoned in a camp stuck in the middle of a hot desert - I could do better than that! Then I saw the movie. The book that I thought might be dark and depressing had been turned into a hilarious comedy!

Usually, you read a book and then see the movie. Often you are disappointed because the characters don't match the image you had in mind. Sometimes the filmmakers leaves out something you thought was important to the plot. Other times they change the ending. For good readers, often the pictures they have made in their minds are better than the ones in the movies.

Since I saw the movie first, I kept looking to see how the book as I read it differed from the movie. Of course, when you see the movie first, it's hard not to see the movie actors as you read their descriptions in the book. For "Holes", the moviemakers did a great job of matching actors to the book's characters. The Camp Green Lake setting was perfect. The desert scenes with the boys' digging their "character-building" holes were realistic enough to make you hot and thirsty, even in the theater.

There was one main advantage, though, from seeing the movie first. You knew from the beginning that the extremely bad situation at Camp Green Lake, as described by the author, had been presented for one purpose - to provide a contrast for the exaggerated humor that it was the author's real intent to present. Every time the villainous chief guard, Mr. Sir, appears in the book, you know to laugh rather than be nervous. You even know not to be horrified when the deadly yellow-spotted lizards appear.

If you haven't already read "Holes", I wholeheartedly recommend it. For that matter, I recommend the movie version also. And I apologize for not reviewing "Holes" some time ago.

 

A newspaper strike ruins a softball
season and almost ruins a family

Gwen loves playing softball on the girls' team sponsored by the Press Gazette, the city's major newspaper. Jess, her cousin, also plays on the team. Gwen's dad works for the newspaper as a copy editor. His twin brother, Dave, also works for the paper. He is Jess's dad, and, of course, is Gwen's Uncle Dave. They are a close family and Jess happens to be Gwen's best friend as well as her cousin.

When a strike is called by the union at the Press Gazette, Gwen's family is affected more than most of the paper's employees. Her father is a member of the union and a strong supporter of the strike. Her Uncle Dave, Jess's father, is in the newspaper's management and is strongly opposed to the strike and the union's demands.

At first, the strike doesn't seem to have much affect on the kid's lives. Gwen's dad is home all the time because he is on strike. Uncle Dave is working all the time because the management at the paper is trying to keep publishing daily issues without most of the workers available for work. As the strike wears on, however, the ill feelings between strikers and non-strikers intensify. Gradually, the two families pull apart and the softball team loses all the players who are kids of the strikers. Even Jess and Gwen reach the point where they can no longer talk to each other without hurtful arguing.

Even though she is only a seventh grader, Gwen wants to do something to make the terrible situation better. But what can she do? Maybe, just maybe, some healing can be brought about if the kids can start playing softball together again.

"Strike Two" is more of a story about newspapers and the problems created by large city newspaper strikes than it is about softball. A reader comes away with a better understanding of how strikes can destroy friendships and even families if those involved, including the kids, don't work at separating issues and feelings.

 

A kids' book that tries to imitate
grown-ups' private eye mystery novels

Sammy in "Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy" is really thirteen-year-old Samantha Keyes. Her best friend is Marissa McKenzie. When the story starts the two girls are going to slip away to take a bus to Hollywood to find Sammy's mother. It seems Sammy's mother, Lana, had left Sammy with her grandmother while she (Lana) tried to make it big in Hollywood as an actress.

Even the bus ride turns out to be an adventure, but the two girls finally locate Sammy's mom. She is living in a big old mansion that's been turned into live-in rooms for aspiring actresses. All the women there have contracted with an elderly Hollywood agent who is schooling them in acting and promising to land them all acting jobs.

Sammy's mother is horrified to see the girls. She is afraid they will get her kicked out of the "school" because she is pretending to be only twenty-five years old and is calling herself Dominique instead of Lana Keyes. And, of course, she can't very will be twenty-five and the mother of a thirteen-year-old daughter.

Since it is nighttime when the girls arrive, they have to be provided some place to sleep until they can be shipped back home the next day. Sammy's mom is able to trade her small bedroom for a little larger one so the girls will have a bed to sleep in. During the night, Sammy wakes up and sees that her mother is gone. She hears knocking on the wall from a neighboring room, but ignores it and goes back to sleep. The next morning they all wake up to find that one of the residents in a neighboring room is dead. They think she has taken an overdose of pills. Sammy, though, is a natural born detective, and she realizes that there is no glass in the room with the dead body. The victim couldn't have swallowed all those pills without water. She has to have been murdered!

Now the girls can't go home. Sammy has to find out who killed the murdered woman. She has to solve the mystery, especially since her mother could be suspected of being the murderer. She wasn't in the room when Sammy woke up and heard the pounding on the wall from the victim's bedroom. Oh, what a mess!

This is mystery book you might like if you can identify with a wisecracking thirteen-year-old girl who acts like a private eye from old-time murder mysteries. The characters, for the most part, aren't very nice people. The plot takes all kinds of weird twists and turns. Sammy finally solves the mystery but only after she puts herself and Melissa in a number of dangerous situations. And yes, there is not only one, but two mummies that pop up in the plot.