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  • A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, and: Hogwash
  • Deborah Stevenson and Elizabeth Bush
Frazee, Marla A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever; written and illus. by Marla Frazee. Harcourt, 200832p ISBN 978-0-15-206020-6$16.00 R* 6-9 yrs
Geisert, Arthur , illus. Hogwash; illus. by Arthur Geisert. Lorraine/Houghton, 2008 [32p] ISBN 978-0-618-77332-9$16.00 Reviewed from galleys R 4-8 yrs

"I move through the halls of school as if I'm not really there," says Andrea Anderson, who feels largely invisible in life as well as high school. That invisibility changes when a neighbor, Honora Menapace, goes into the hospital suddenly, and dog-loving Andrea leaps into the breach to take care of Zena, Mrs. Menapace's St. Bernard. When Mrs. Menapace returns home, she's facing chemotherapy, so she wants Andrea to stay on; in getting to know the artistic, free-thinking Honora and becoming a part of her life, Andrea finds her views of life and herself expanding. Debut novelist Crane has a pleasing and polished style, and the book authentically reflects the galvanizing effect an outsider's positive opinion can have on the changing teen self-image. The characterizations don't always match up well to the book's approval ratings, however: Andrea's new friend Ashley is perfectly happy to trash-talk her old popular friends despite being ostensibly better than they, Mrs. Menapace is rather tediously self-romanticizing, and Andrea's mother seems to be problematic more for her polyester pants and taste for popular sitcoms than for actual mistreatment of her daughter (indeed, the story seems mostly an unacknowledged drama of class difference, as Mrs. Menapace's delightful life is clearly made possible by having the [End Page 288] kind of money that Andrea's mother will never see). The book does create some deft and effective secondary characters, though, and it doesn't resort simply to being a morality play, since it's clear that Andrea's viewpoint of many people, including her mother, has been strictured. Most of all, there's a terrific appeal in the idea of a sophisticated adult finding a teen worthy and interesting in a way her family never has, and readers will enjoy the notion of finding their own Mrs. Menapace to see through to their undervalued souls.

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