Happy Kid!

by Gail Gauthier

Overview

All cynical Kyle wants is to get through the seventh grade unnoticed, but a self-help book from his well-meaning mother changes all that. Magically, the book seems to know all about him. And it wants him to improve his life.

Not only is he friendless, mistakenly taking super-difficult accelerated courses, and infamous for allegedly being involved in a violent "incident" on the bus (a rep that has the school terror sticking to him like glue), one of the true A Kids wants to lure him into questioning whether his class cheated on their state exams. How could a book help anyone through this kind of misery?
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101042809
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	05/18/2006
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	486 KB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Gail Gauthier writes in a spacious room her family refers to as "the office," but which everyone else knows as "the cellar." When she isn't writing or indulging in her habit of reading more than one book at a time, she tends to the business of running a family. She does a lot of "mom-type" stuff (such as masterminding birthday parties and driving unenthusiastic children to music lessons), helps with special events at the local elementary school, and chaperones field trips--activities that provide her with plenty of material about which to write. She lives in Conneticut with her husband and their two sons, William and Robert.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 5-8-To Kyle, Bert P. Trotts Middle School is "the gateway to hell.'' All he wants is to get through seventh grade unnoticed. Since he's infamous for an incident with a screwdriver on the bus in sixth grade that was blown way out of proportion by the administration, and he has been placed in accelerated classes, he has lost all of his friends. On the night before school starts, his mother gives him a book to help him counteract his negativity, claiming that Happy Kid: A Young Person's Guide to Satisfying Relationships and a Happy and Meaning-filled Life just screamed his name when she saw it. But the book seems to have a plan of its own, falling open to the parts that are pertinent to the zany situations that Kyle finds himself in, although sometimes offering advice that makes his life more complicated. Gauthier perfectly describes a typically self-absorbed teenage boy who sees himself as an underdog. Her one-liners, rapid-fire humor, and sharp ear for dialogue make this a quick, funny read. This portrait of middle school will ring all too true to students who run that gauntlet daily.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Whimsical feel-good comedy about a friendless seventh-grade boy who receives a life-changing self-help book that may have magical properties. This slyly fanciful but unambiguously humorous story opens when Kyle, a hapless kid who's negative enough to make a cheerleader boo, gets a book from his well-meaning but irritating mother titled Happy Kid! A Young Person's Guide to Satisfying Relationships and a Happy and Meaning-filled Life! Although he's horrified by the gift and initially has to be bribed to read it, Kyle finds that weirdly, miraculously, the book works, though not always in the way he would like. Gauthier, who pulls off the difficult feat of writing an amiable, malice-free send-up of self-help, brilliantly nails Kyle's helping professional mom. Kyle's lightly sketched father is a genuine hoot, and her depiction of the constantly undulating social status and insecurities of middle-grade kids rings true. Light and slight, won't produce life long happiness, but will certainly give the reader an enjoyable couple of hours. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews