من تصميم Jordan Sonnenblick
When the going gets tough–fake it!
Look, I didn’t ask to move to Nowheresville, Pennsylvania. I stick out here like a squid on Mount Everest. The way I figure it, blending in won’t make people like me. Or solve my huge family problems. Or get me noticed by Woody, the fearless, wildhaired, guitar-rocking girl of my dreams–without getting my butt kicked by her huge, evil friend. Blending in is impossible. So maybe it’s time for me to stand out.
Meet San Lee, a (sort of ) innocent teenager, who moves against his will to a new town.Things get interesting when he (sort of ) invents a new past for himself, which makes him (sort of ) popular. In fact, his whole school starts to (sort of ) worship him, just because he (sort of ) accidentally gave the impression that he’s a reincarnated mystic. When things start to unravel, San needs to find some real wisdom in a hurry. Can he patch things up with his family, save himself from bodily harm, stop being an outcast, and maybe even get the girl? Sort of . . .
When the going gets tough–fake it!
Look, I didn’t ask to move to Nowheresville, Pennsylvania. I stick out here like a squid on Mount Everest. The way I figure it, blending in won’t make people like me. Or solve my huge family problems. Or get me noticed by Woody, the fearless, wildhaired, guitar-rocking girl of my dreams–without getting my butt kicked by her huge, evil friend. Blending in is impossible. So maybe it’s time for me to stand out.
Meet San Lee, a (sort of ) innocent teenager, who moves against his will to a new town.Things get interesting when he (sort of ) invents a new past for himself, which makes him (sort of ) popular. In fact, his whole school starts to (sort of ) worship him, just because he (sort of ) accidentally gave the impression that he’s a reincarnated mystic. When things start to unravel, San needs to find some real wisdom in a hurry. Can he patch things up with his family, save himself from bodily harm, stop being an outcast, and maybe even get the girl? Sort of . . .
المراجعات-
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Thirteen-year-old San Lee has just moved to another new middle school, where he has no friends and no prospects until he answers a few questions about the finer points of Zen Buddhism and his teacher and the prettiest, most mysterious girl in class take notice. Suddenly, fudging a few personal facts and passing himself off as a Zen master doesn't seem like a bad idea. Mike Chamberlain delivers an endearing and mortifyingly honest performance as he narrates a story filled with humor, innocence, and teen angst. One can't help but root for a book that combines Eastern philosophies with Woody Guthrie and basketball. A listening treat. B.P. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
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Starred review from October 8, 2007
After San Lee's adoptive father is imprisoned for fraud, the eighth-grader moves with his mother from Texas to Pennsylvania. He has moved often, each time creating new identities; this time he pretends to be a Zen master. He sits zazen on a cold rock near school each morning and says things like, “Thank you for teaching me the lesson of impermanence” (this piece of wisdom comes after a foe ruins his schoolwork). As he hopes, his “uniqueness” impresses Woody, a folk-singing girl with her own family heartache. Together, they embark on a school project about Zen, volunteer at a soup kitchen, and even devise supposedly Zen strategies to help the second-string basketball team take on the starters (this includes a practice game on roller skates). Naturally, they fall for each other, although San thinks she has a crush on a mysterious stranger. Readers will know that it is only a matter of time before San is exposed as a “fake, adopted, research-based Buddhist,” but Sonnenblick (Notes from the Midnight Driver,
see Paperback Reprints) gives them plenty to laugh at (in one scene, Woody calls on insect-phobic San to remove a centipede from class because of his well-known “reverence for all living things”). Mixed in with more serious scenes (San finally writes his father a letter expressing his anger), these lighter moments take a basic message about the importance of honesty and forgiveness and treat it with panache. Ages 12-up.
