33 Minutes

December 10, 2012
Adult author Hasak-Lowy (Captives) makes his middle-grade debut with an entertaining story about the shifting nature of friendship. Sam and Morgan used to be best friends, but a new kid named Chris has driven them apart, with Morgan joining the football team and becoming one of the most popular seventh graders. As the novel opens, the titular countdown to the moment when Morgan is scheduled to beat up Sam has begun, and Sam’s flashbacks to the events surrounding their friendship’s dissolution intermix with that last half hour of safety at school. The supporting cast is only lightly developed, and Chris comes across as a one-dimensional villain, rather than the more complex character that his background suggests (readers learn, for instance, that his parents are seldom around). Nonetheless, Hasak-Lowy gives Sam an amusingly discursive narrative voice (on getting his “butt kicked”: “f you knew someone was going to kick you some place, would you not hope for that place to be your butt?”) through which he dissects the middle school experience and his loss of a friend. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8–12. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House.

February 1, 2013

Gr 5-8-Sam Lewis has been Morgan Sturtz's best friend all through elementary school. Despite Morgan's rise to popularity because of his football ability and Sam's small stature and securely cemented position as school nerd and math genius, he'd assumed their friendship would last forever. Enter new kid Chris Tripadero and an incident involving a note Sam scribbled in anger that remains unexplained for the majority of the book, and all of sudden Sam finds himself waiting in both fear and sadness for his former best friend to seek him out and kick his butt. At times mundane, as when readers wade through a slow-moving social-studies class, but with its fair share of high-stakes action, the novel does an excellent job of traversing the wilds of middle school drama. Sam triumphs in finding a friendship and love interest in fellow geek Amy Takahara, and his security in his own intelligence and worth is reassuring, but the heart of the story is the very real failure of his friendship with Morgan to survive the changes that come with adolescence. Occasional cartoon illustrations add some humor to the story, but seem unnecessary in what is already a strong and refreshingly straightforward portrait of identity and shifting-friendship trials.-Joanna Sondheim, Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, New York City

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