Saturday, March 12, 2016

The Last Boy at St. Edith's by Lee Gjertsen Malone - OPTIONAL

Malone, Lee Gjertsen The Last Boy at St. Edith’s, 260 pgs. Simon & Schuster, 2016. $16.99. 

Language: G (0 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: G; Violence: PG (bullying).  

Jeremy is in 7th grade and is the only boy at St. Edith’s private school.  For a while, the school was coed, but several years ago they stopped enrolling new male students and let the ones who were already there finish through the 8th grade.  Now, what was 26 is down to 1 as one after another the boys moved, or transferred leaving Jeremy the lone boy.  His mother won’t let him transfer out, so Jeremy comes up with a plan to get kicked out.  With the help of his friend Claudia, Jeremy is going to pull some harmless pranks, causing just enough trouble to get thrown out of school.  But when a prank or two backfire causing damage and sending someone to the hospital, Jeremy may have more trouble than he bargained for.  

There was a film club in this book, which may give it some appeal to the drama kids, but otherwise, I wasn’t very impressed.  While the pranks made it exciting, the ending was not satisfying, leaving several loose ends, and I didn’t feel the characters grew or changed really at all.   

MS - OPTIONAL  Lisa Librarian

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