Zen and the Art of Faking It, by Jordan Sonnenblick
Posted by DBRLTeen on Thursday, April 16th, 2009
San is a new eighth-grader at school, and not particularly happy to be there. He has a somewhat cynical yet humorous way of looking at things, as we see on page 2:
So. Eighth grade. Second semester. New state. Math was math – algebra, of course. They always stick the Asian kid in the algebra class. Science was science. Fortunately I know how to roll a stupid little metal car down a ramp and use a stopwatch, so no problemo there. In English, all I could figure out the first day was that the teacher was nuts – so again, same stuff, different time zone. Gym, lunch – I honed my skills at standing and sitting in the corner. I also continued my long-standing tradition of eating nothing but pasta and fruit in the cafeteria – I’d never been to a public school that knew how to cook actual meat. Oh, I almost forgot home economics. Brownies. Made with applesauce. No wonder America’s kids have lost their way.
Great writing, even though your English teacher may object to all the incomplete sentences! But the author creates a really interesting character that you feel you know right away. Unfortunately San falls victim to the greatest enemy 8th-grade boys face: their inability to successfully relate to 8th-grade girls. We all try to make ourselves look a little better than we are when we’re trying to impress someone, but San carries it to extremes, creating a whole new persona for himself as a Zen master to impress a girl. Unfortunately San is NOT a zen master, so many hours in the library (Yea!) researching the subject is required. (Please do not follow San’s example by lying to a librarian in order to use the library computers!) Lots of library humour, school humour, and zen humour, too.
So DBRLTeen recommends Zen and the Art of Faking It, by Jordan Sonnenblick. You’ll learn a lot about zen. More important, you’ll have a chance to think about the consequences of lying about yourself to impress others.
Visit the author’s website at http://www.jordansonnenblick.com/