Zen and the Art of Faking It

Thirteen-year-old San Lee has just moved to another new middle school, where he has no friends and no prospects until he answers a few questions about the finer points of Zen Buddhism and his teacher and the prettiest, most mysterious girl in class take notice. Suddenly, fudging a few personal facts and passing himself off as a Zen master doesn't seem like a bad idea. Mike Chamberlain delivers an endearing and mortifyingly honest performance as he narrates a story filled with humor, innocence, and teen angst. One can't help but root for a book that combines Eastern philosophies with Woody Guthrie and basketball. A listening treat. B.P. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Starred review from October 8, 2007
After San Lee's adoptive father is imprisoned for fraud, the eighth-grader moves with his mother from Texas to Pennsylvania. He has moved often, each time creating new identities; this time he pretends to be a Zen master. He sits zazen on a cold rock near school each morning and says things like, “Thank you for teaching me the lesson of impermanence” (this piece of wisdom comes after a foe ruins his schoolwork). As he hopes, his “uniqueness” impresses Woody, a folk-singing girl with her own family heartache. Together, they embark on a school project about Zen, volunteer at a soup kitchen, and even devise supposedly Zen strategies to help the second-string basketball team take on the starters (this includes a practice game on roller skates). Naturally, they fall for each other, although San thinks she has a crush on a mysterious stranger. Readers will know that it is only a matter of time before San is exposed as a “fake, adopted, research-based Buddhist,” but Sonnenblick (Notes from the Midnight Driver,
see Paperback Reprints) gives them plenty to laugh at (in one scene, Woody calls on insect-phobic San to remove a centipede from class because of his well-known “reverence for all living things”). Mixed in with more serious scenes (San finally writes his father a letter expressing his anger), these lighter moments take a basic message about the importance of honesty and forgiveness and treat it with panache. Ages 12-up.

thumsup - Sometimes putting up a fake identity can cause more impact than you think. That's what San Lee learned when he made up the fact that he was a Buddhist and a Zen Master. Ever since his father went to prison for numerous felonies, San went through phases as he lived throughout America; Skater, Jock, and many others. This time, he decided to be all knowing and philosophical. I loved this book because it was really funny and it teaches an important lesson in the end. More people started looking up to San as I read, and that only made the risk greater that more people were going to get hurt since he was a fraud. Unfortunately, San also has a potential rockstar girlfriend. If you ever lay your hands on this story, I suggest take the dive- it's memorable.