Whatshisface

Written by Gordon Korman

Scholastic Press

978-1-338-20016-4

231 pp.

Ages 8-12

May 2018

There's an anonymity that comes with being the new kid at school that can be refreshing. But most times, and twelve-year-old Cooper Vega knows this well, you're just Whatshisface, the guy no one cares to know. You're not part of the established cohorts or activities and many kids are not going to bother trying to include you in their lives.  Cooper feels like his job is just "to get out of the way." (pg. 1) But, in his new home town of Stratford, where Somerset Wolfson, Shakespearean fanatic and one of the richest men in the U.S., lives, it's looks like it might not work as it always has.

Being in Grade 7, Cooper and his classmates will be responsible for performing the annual Shakespearean play.  This year's play will be Romeo and Juliet, an endeavour supported financially by Mr. Wolfson. As much as Cooper might enjoy playing Romeo–the role assigned to the obnoxious Brock Bumgartner–opposite the incredible Jolie, he is selected for Second Watchman, a perfect role for a Whatshisface.

But when his new cell phone, the GX-4000, starts acting up and connects with the ghost of a young printer's apprentice, Roderick Barnabas Northrop, from 1596 England, staying a Whatshisface becomes a little harder.  This is especially true when Roddy, in his efforts to help Cooper become less of a Whatshisface and win Jolie's attentions, learns that the play they are performing is one he had started writing prior to his death!

Gordon Korman is a writing hero to middle graders. He has the heart of a middle grader or at least he writes like one and that's why young readers LOVE his books. He writes funny stories with great plots, relatable characters and satisfying endings that resolve with honesty and realism. That's pretty amazing considering there's a ghost in a cell phone in Whatshisface. Still the characters, other than Roddy, are real kids who want to fit in or be popular or get the lead role or want to stay under the radar. Most are just trying to survive middle school. Readers will see themselves in Cooper, a boy who doesn't feel like he belongs but does feel like he's always messing up.  He's not a loser but he certainly feels like one at times, not unlike just about everyone in the world. And they'll cheer for him when Roddy whips out insult after insult, in true sixteen-century style, to come to Cooper's defence.

"...had my fat hound thy face, I should shave its hindquarters and train it to present itself rearward." (pg. 81)

 (This is paraphrased by Cooper as "...if my dog had your face, I'd shave its butt and teach it to walk backward."; pg. 81) What child would not laugh uproariously at that irreverence?

While many young readers will be grabbed by the familiar plot of trying to fit in, the subplot related to Shakespeare's alleged theft of manuscripts is a fascinating one. By incorporating that controversy (and there is a history of allegations that Shakespeare may have adapted, if not stolen, the works of others) with the quirky friendship between boy and ghost, finding one's place, whether in middle school or in history, takes on a whole new dimension.

Unraveling Isobel

by Eileen Cook

Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster)

978-1-4424-1327-6

290 pp.

Ages 14-18

2012

No seventeen-year-old likes being yanked away from her friends at the beginning of her graduating year. That's pretty tough on Isobel, but she also has to deal with her mother's new husband, Richard (who Isobel insists on calling Dick) and her new gorgeous stepbrother, Nathaniel, who is still getting over the deaths of his mother and younger sister less than a year ago and seems less than welcoming. Plus, she has to move to an "estate" on a small island where the community's predominant gossip is related to her new family and home.  Isobel definitely finds it hard to keep herself together and even hold her tongue sometimes.  But, with her birth father having given up his career to become an artist (her own passion, though stifled by her mom) and suffering from schizophrenia (which is known to have a genetic component), Isobel starts worrying that the unraveling means she's going crazy.

She'd like to turn to someone, so she tries calling her best friend, Anita, but she seems pretty busy with new friends. Her mother is too gaga over her wealthy, new husband to do anything except chastise Isobel for not appreciating their new life.  Although her step-brother, Nathaniel, tries to be available to her, he is just a little too attractive for comfort.  At school, though, Isobel is taken under the wing of popular alpha-girl, Nicole, and her entourage of cheerleaders, and starts to feel like she's settling in a bit (even if Nicole insists she join the cheer leading squad).  Of course, there are the drawings that Isobel doesn't recall sketching,  and the recurring visions of a young girl, and things in her room being rearranged.

Given time, Isobel probably would have worked things out for herself, but with Dick and her mom insisting that she see a therapist, and Nicole's gossip and machinations making life just a bit more difficult, and Nathaniel starting to share his feelings with her while continuing to be so good-looking, everything just works against her.  Luckily her humour and nerve help Isobel unravel appropriately while keeping her whole.  Her snarky comebacks to the comments of others continued to keep me laughing and cheering for her, pleased with her strength of character. When Nathaniel questions how she could possibly see with her heavy, dark make-up (crap, he calls it), she fires back with, "How do you see with your head shoved so far up your ass?" (pg. 14).  She doesn't hold back, not even with the profanities.

Isobel's fear, that she is losing her mind and is not "normal", is indicative of the stigma that her mother, and too often society, attach to issues of mental health.  She even acknowledges that it would have been easier to tell others that her dad had leprosy or was a terrorist than that he was mentally ill.  But, even though frightened, Isobel continues to evaluate her mental health quite rationally, for example, recognizing that she didn't really have crazy thoughts because, "I didn't think I was Napoleon, or that my bagel was an alien," (pg. 48), relieving her tension, as well as that of the reader who could feel witness to a breakdown.  She regularly assesses the unnerving criticisms from her mother and Dick ("I love how when you have a opinion different from your parent's it's an 'attitude'"; pg.95) or to creepy sounds ("...was a wind chime, some type of sea glass and shell thing.  Fantastic.  I had been attempting to communicate with a home accessory"; pg. 47).

Although I thought Nathaniel came around a little too quickly, especially while still dealing with his grief and his father's prompt remarriage, I relaxed when Isobel found an ally in him and one who appreciated things about her that she did not recognize herself.  Any way, when you have to solve a mystery, it's always nice to have a sidekick, especially one with whom you could fall in love.  (Remember: they're only step-siblings, as Isobel constantly reminds everyone. No reason to chastise them.  It's legal.)

Fanatics

by William Bell

Doubleday Canada

978-0-385-67027-2

289 pp.

Ages 12+

2011

Garnet Havelock and Raphaella Skye from Bell's award-winning book, Stones (Doubleday Canada, 2001) are still together, having graduated from high school in Orillia and pursuing careers in furniture-making and stage management, respectively.  For a nominal lease on the coach house (for his workshop) at the estate of the recently-deceased Professor Corbizzi, Garnet reaches an agreement with Mrs. Stoppini, the professor's housekeeper and companion, to make repairs to the fire-damaged library and to catalogue the scholar's book collection. After stumbling across a hidden cupboard with a manuscript titled "Fanatics", a medal and an ornate cross, and enduring nightmares of a tortured man, Garnet enlists Raphaella's psychic tendencies to learn more about the circumstances surrounding the late professor's demise.

As in Stones, a parallel but contemporary storyline reinforces the theme, here of religious intolerance.  In his attempt to return a found GPS, Garnet discovers a covert camp of men in camouflage gear (including firearms) and speaking an unfamiliar language.  He parlays this information to deter his mother, the investigative journalist, from pursuing another dangerous assignment, one in Afghanistan.  As Garnet and Raphaella learn of the fanaticism and fate of the 15th c. Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola, they must also discover the means by which to exorcise his spectre from the library.

I've read reviews by those who declare parallel plot lines, in the past and the present, to be contrived and unimaginative.  But, as the selection committee for the Canadian Library Association's Young Adult Canadian Book Award undoubtedly recognized in its 2001 choice, Stones, the folding of one story into another does not compromise either, but rather enhances the texture (not unlike folding egg whites into batter - as Mrs. Stoppini would know from making her zuccotto).

Just as Garnet crafts a piece of furniture or Mrs. Stoppini creates an Italian dessert, William Bell builds his plots from the commonplace through meticulous detail to a riveting and satisfying resolution.  No detail, such as Garnet and Raphaella's relationship, is misplaced or extraneous. The read is enriching and satiating.