How to Get Suspended and Influence People

I read this book last March, but since 2007 is almost over, I can honestly say that of the hundreds of books I've read all year, this was one of the most enjoyable. As a past member of the gifted pool, I had many a flashback to all the crazy stunts that inevitably seep out when a bunch of intelligent smartasses get together. Leon is so engaging and worth rooting for, and Selzer's writing is just plain hilarious. It's refreshing to find a writer who doesn't feel the need to condescend to young readers. I can't wait for Pirates of the Retail Wasteland.

Adam Selzer's HOW TO GET SUSPENDED AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE tells of a class project where a teen's class is chosen to make educational videos for younger grades. Leon's determination to create something outrageous changes to a genuine desire to make sex education something real - until the program's director suspends him for its disturbing content. Real issues are revealed in a novel about sexuality and censorship.

Eighth-grader Leon Harris takes on an assignment to create an "educational" video and decides to make it artsy and avant-garde in order to spread the message that what pubescent kids are feeling is normal. And that goes double about masturbating. He thinks it'll change the world. One of his teachers thinks he's a Satan-worshipping immoral miscreant who should be expelled and thrown in jail. Suddenly the entire student body rallies around Leon and it becomes an issue of free speech and artsy subversion vs. what should and shouldn't be taught in public schools. It's hilarious and, if not totally realistic, at least very human. I harbor perverse love for misfit adolescent main characters - adolescent either physically (Stephen Chbosky, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower) or emotionally (Mark Spitz, How Soon Is Never?) - and Leon is immature, smartassy and sassy, bless him, and they need to make more kids like him.

Adam Selzer clearly remembers what it's like to be in the "gifted" class in middle school -- and an outsider. The hero of "How to Get Suspended and Influence People," Leon Noside Harris, reminds the reader of the gifted kids they knew in their junior high days: smart-alecky, disheveled, ahead of their age, and out-of-step with the cool kids. And that's the way they liked it. These are the kids you used to describe by saying, "He's either going to be a great success or end up in jail." Leon is supported at school by a gaggle of like-minded friends, and by teachers who want to lift him up and slap him down. At home, Leon's lovingly dysfunctional family will remind you of Bill Bryson's parents in "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" (Selzer and Bryson both grew up in Des Moines, albeit 30 years apart -- was there something in the water there?). Young readers will relate to Leon's efforts to "fight the power" and make La Dolce Pubert. Adults will laugh as they remember their junior high days -- or the junior high days they wish they had.

The literary world has a new hero! Leon Noside Harris is an amusing and clever character to follow in Adam Selzer's book, "How To Get Suspended and Influence People". Selzer's writing brings you into the quirky world of a teenager who is a little more than ordinary. It was an enjoyable read and one that I can relate to immensely. Young readers will easily absorb this entertaining story about censorship, art, and puberty. I would recommend this book to kids as well as adults. It is extremely well written and humorous. I hope it becomes a series! Bravo! My favorite quote from one paragraph, "you had an idea and you went for it. That's worth a lot in this world."