Colin Fischer

October 15, 2012
The screenwriting team behind X-Men: First Class and Thor make their YA debut with the story of a teenager with Asperger’s syndrome solving a crime, a premise that can’t help evoking Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Kids constantly target high school freshman Colin, who struggles to understand their facial expressions or jokes, and who sometimes barks when upset. When a gun goes off in the school cafeteria, Colin uses his considerable observational skills and powers of logic to prove that Wayne, a bully who put Colin’s head in the toilet on the first day of school, wasn’t responsible (when an incredulous Wayne asks Colin why he is helping, Colin simply replies, “You’re innocent”). Through journal entries that begin each chapter and footnotes about everything from genetic chimerism to false dichotomies, readers get a strong sense of how Colin’s brain works. Beyond Colin and his parents, though, the other characters are somewhat flat. Even so, readers will be drawn into the mystery and intrigued by Colin’s vision of the world. Ages 12–up. Agent: Eric Simonoff, William Morris Endeavor.

October 1, 2012
The subgenre combining sleuthing with characters who have Asperger syndrome gets a new entry offering humor and interesting historical and scientific connections--but the narrative viewpoint drifts unsettlingly. Colin begins high school with a cheat sheet to decipher facial expressions, but he no longer uses a "shadow," an adult to help him navigate the social landscape. The hallway's crowded (Colin hates touch); the bathroom sign is blue (a color he dislikes); and Wayne (who's been bullying him for years) dunks his head in the toilet. As the plot unfolds--bullying, Colin's arithmetical approach to basketball, birthday cake and a real gun going off in the cafeteria--Colin tracks everything in his notebook (facts only). Many entries end with this plan: "Investigate." As a sleuth, Colin's sharply observant, his discoveries impressive. The gun mystery doesn't frighten him: "Wayne Connelly is innocent, and I will prove it. The game is afoot." Disconcertingly, the narrative voice conveys some of Colin's thoughts but also some of his parents' and Wayne's; sometimes it aligns itself with Colin's perspective, sometimes it describes him from the outside ("her irony as lost on Colin as it usually was"). Omniscience is one thing, authorial convenience another. This mobile narrative allegiance makes it hard to pinpoint whether the Asperger humor is from Colin or about him. Entertaining, but confused about its point of view. (Fiction. 11-16)

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January 1, 2013

Gr 5 Up-Colin Fischer, 14, has Asperger's syndrome. He is highly intelligent, but incapable of reading social cues and struggles to navigate everyday situations. When he enters high school, he faces bullies, class clowns, cliques, and a mystery: Who brought the gun to school that went off in the cafeteria? He soon becomes convinced that the bully, Wayne, who is temporarily suspended, is not guilty. As he works to exonerate Wayne, everyone wonders why he would help someone who dunked him in the toilet on the first day of school. For Colin, it is not a matter of helping the bully, but of making sure that the truth comes out. He eventually proves Wayne is innocent and in the process makes a new friend. Each chapter starts out with an excerpt from Colin's diary, giving facts about Asperger's, a clever device to avoid didactic writing. Colin's family interactions, including squabbles with his younger brother, who resents his sibling's special needs, render him sympathetic. Overall, this book succeeds in making Colin a believable character, deeply rooted in his disability, but always a person first.-Wendy Smith-D'Arezzo, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2012
Grades 5-8 The robotic nature of 14-year-old Colin's severe Asperger's syndrome has made him a bit of an outcast at school. He uses a set of flash cards to help identify people's facial emotions. He keeps a journal filled with people's reactions, so that he may better elicit them in the future. And he is unintentionally blunt. (To a friend he hasn't seen for months: Your breasts got bigger. ) It is precisely these qualities that make him the ideal witness to a shocking event: a gun going off in the middle of the cafeteria. With unparalleled powers of observation and deductionSherlock Holmes is his heroColin examines the facts until he is forced, by sheer logic, to come to the defense of the accused Wayne, a bully who has long tortured Colin. Miller and Stentz keep the page plenty busy, setting off each emotion that Colin identifies in a larger font ( MALICE, HESITATION ) and including handwritten scraps from Colin's journal. Happily, they succeed where it counts the mostcrafting the mechanical Colin into a sympathetic and dynamic character.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)