Harvey the Beer Can King

I ordered this book for nostalgia, as I remembered reading it when I was about ten or eleven, and read it in just over an hour. It's still hilarious! For better or for worse, beer can collecting has turned into somewhat of a lesser known hobby for kids, but the characters and situations in this book are timeless. If you're looking for a funny story with hilarious characters, look no further. I for one, would love to see this book back in print...

Harvey is sure that his collection of beer cans will win him the coveted Sixth-Grade Superkid title, but he thinks he's up against former-friend Quint (a talented magician), and skateboarding mentor Eric. What he really needs to overcome are not his classmates but his inflated sense of importance and his willingness to take advantage of younger kids in order to improve his collection. This could easily have been a cliche story of a boy who overcomes external conflict before glorying in victory, but Jamie Gilson throws a curve-ball here, and what we get instead is a silly, funny, introspective, thoroughly charming study of pride, greed, good advice, and forgiveness. It's not Shakespeare, but it's a fun, quick read middle-grade elementary schoolers will enjoy, and it's a good launching point from which their parents and teachers might begin conversations about ambition and priorities. Gilson creates an instantly likable main character with likable friends and likable siblings and places them deftly in a story where the only real villain is the main character himself.