Horn Book Review

(Primary) The fertile imagination and laconic style that Sachar employed to great effect in Holes work equally well for this latest volume in an often-brilliant series. Marvin thinks he sees a UFO while sleeping in his friend Nick's backyard, but both boys have forgotten all about it when the next week a new kid shows up at school. His name? Joe Normal. But with his strange habits and odd gaps of knowledge (which Joe attributes to being from Chicago), the other kids think Joe is anything but normal, and it's Marvin alone who seems prepared to make Joe feel welcome. Readers will enjoy knowing that Joe is an alien while the characters don't; the particularly brilliant bit in this volume is that they don't ever find out-and Marvin's mother agrees that he can go visit the Normals, who are moving back ""home,"" a couple of summers hence. The playground dynamics are exactly right, even poignant, as when Gina and Heather make a dumb joke about Joe being a ""door key"": ""'He doesn't even get it,' said Heather. Joe walked away. He got it."" Clipped sentences and short paragraphs are not only just right for new readers, they're just right for the story-a smart, funny twist on the new-kid theme, reminding us that everyone feels alienated at one time or another. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.