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Reviewed by:
  • Weird Stuff
  • Loretta Gaffney
Tulloch , Richard Weird Stuff; illus. by Shane Nagle. Walker, 2006195p ISBN 0-8027-8058-X$16.95 R Gr. 5-7

Despite dreams of heroism, Brian Hubble is average and unremarkable both in class and on the soccer field, until one day a strange thing happens: he scores a match-winning soccer goal. When Brian's favorite author, Lancelot Cummins, the brilliant mind behind Escape from Planet Zog and My Mom's a Zombie Killer, visits Brian's English class to help students with their creative writing, another strange thing occurs: a pen borrowed from a classmate turns out to have a mind of its own, transforming Brian into a brilliant writer of steamy romances; after the pen is lost, however, Brian must find a way to tap into his own creativity in order to secure Lancelot Cummins' admiration. This Australian import effectively alternates between the classroom and the soccer field, with plenty of snickerworthy fun embedded in the allusions to Lancelot Cummins' novels (all of which feature appealing and gratuitous grossout and bathroom humor) and the frequent plays on words (most of which come from Brian's malapropisms). Nagle's renderings of Brian's doodlings are artfully slipshod with an authentically middle-school bent; the lists of ways to impress girls, illustrations of Great Moments in Literature (all from the oeuvre of Lancelot Cummins), the antics of an eviscerated frog, and the chronicles of Brian's dreams (which he amusingly misreads, thinking an albatross is a good sign) all supplement the boisterous main narrative's hilarity. This romp through literary creation will appeal to budding novelists and soccer players alike; others will enjoy this goofy paean to early adolescent insecurity and the creative process.

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