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This past week I read Slob, by Ellen Potter, and it was fantastic. Owen (the main character and teller of the story) doesn’t give you all the details; he rolls them to you one by one and completely out of order. It’s a really thought-provoking book; it brings you into Owen and Jeremy’s restored lives after their parents have died and life is getting normal.

This book is about 12-year-old Owen Birnbaum, who says he is “five foot two and I weighs 156 pounds.” He is also smarter than the average bear, but he is not allowed to tell you his IQ score because his mom won’t let him anymore. Owen suspects that the new kid, Mason Ragg , who supposedly had a firecracker thrown at his face for strangling a girl with her necklace and carries a switchblade in his sock (or a razor under his tongue, no one really knows) has been stealing his oreos from the lunch closet. Meanwhile, Jeremy, formerly Caitlin, has joined GWAB; Girls Who Are Boys. While Owen works on Nemesis, his best invention yet, Nima, the Buddhist downstairs, raises money (by selling momos) so that his new wife Pema and her mom can come live in New York.

In this surprisingly curious tale, Owen (also known as Flapjack) releases his string of events one by one until you can barely hold on to the book – you just HAVE to know the ending NOW! I would recommend this book for ages 9 – 12, just because it is sort of shocking at the end. I congratulate Ellen Potter on a job well done!