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INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Johnson, Peter

The Life and Times of Benny Alvarez

218 pp. | HarperCollins/Harper | July, 2014 | Trade ISBN 978-0-06-221596-3 $16.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-06-221598-7
(4) 4-6 A classroom poetry contest pits "wordsmith" and contrarian Benny against his accidental rival, Claudine, and "polarize[s] the seventh grade." Benny's grandfather's stroke and Claudine's dog's death unite the two. Fart jokes and wordplay coexist, sometimes uncomfortably, in Benny's first-person narration, and Benny alternately seems surprisingly young and wise beyond his years. Still, Johnson creates a goodhearted, realistically complex middle-school character.
Reviewer: Rebecca Fox

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