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Reviewed by:
  • Restart by Gordon Korman
  • Elizabeth Bush
Korman, Gordon Restart. Scholastic, 2017 [258p]
ISBN 978-1-338-05377-7 $16.99
Reviewed from galleys         R Gr. 4-7

A fall from the house roof leaves eighth-grader Chase Ambrose with acute retrograde amnesia. He may not remember names and faces from before his accident, but his classmates certainly remember him, and for the majority of Hiawasee Middle School, the memories are none too pleasant. Chase was the ringleader of a circle of bullying football jocks, who terrorized weaker, nerdier students and even caused talented pianist Joel Weber to transfer to a boarding school. Chase, however, remembers none of this, and his return to school as a perfectly amiable guy is met with understandable skepticism. His football goons want their rowdy, nasty old boy back, but he's perfectly content now hanging with the kids in the video club, where a football player's dexterity translates well to operating a flip-cam. It's not easy, though, for Chase simply to chuck his problematic past and move on to fresher fields—decent friends, new skills, even a commitment to helping the elderly in a local assisted living center—since he's still in possession of a stolen Medal of Honor that he can't remember pilfering but that his old partners in crime know he has stashed away. The pranks of his new crew of "vidiots" and the grouchy outbursts of his new geriatric acquaintance, Mr. Solway, provide ample comic relief, but Chase's very real dilemma—how to remake his life when people (including himself) don't fully trust his character change—is the serious underpinning that holds the goofy episodes together. This is the solid, seriocomic approach that's always worked well for Korman, and his fans will be pleased he's as sure-handed as ever.

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