The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer (review)

The competitive reality show For Art’s Sake descends on Selwyn Academy in Ethan’s junior year, allowing talented students at the specialized arts school a shot at screen time and a winning prize of a substantial scholarship. Ethan and his buddies—charismatic Luke, quiet techie Jackson, and Jackson’s artistic cousin Elizabeth—create an underground newspaper, the Contracantos, that pillories the school’s sellout to reality TV in a long poem reminiscent of Ezra Pound’s Cantos. However, the runners of the show delight in this development, embracing Luke as a gifted writer and adding him to their roster of contestants, and he succumbs immediately and entirely to fame’s lure. The other three redouble their efforts and begin a completely illicit investigation of the school’s relationship with the program, along the way finding out that very little, within reality TV or without, is what it seems. Crackling, witty narration, free roaming between hyperintellectual allusion (including Latinate plays on words) and shout-outs to Candyland and Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, will immediately grip fans of Frank Portman and John Green. Throw in reality TV, a spot of administrative criminality, and some good old-fashioned caper-film break-ins and the mix is pretty near irresistible. Characterization is cool and sharp yet sympathetic: Ethan is endearing as the nice guy who’s convinced he’s behind the curve, believes his friends are better than they are, and bonds poignantly with Jackson’s gerbil, Baconnaise; even his distant dream girl, ballerina Maura, turns out to be more interesting than both Ethan’s dreams and the TV show’s predictable portrayal of her. The tension between cynicism and naïveté, knowledge and innocence in these brainy but still maturing kids is astutely evoked, and readers will be right there alongside them for every protest, misstep, and loss.