Stuck in school and bored, Julian is given the assignment
of writing stories about himself. He describes his life
and pals so well that he is excused Shakespeare if he keeps
writing. With each instalment we see a little further into
his personal world, battles, jerky conversations, romantic
inclinations and all.
TWERP is a nickname based on Julian's surname Twerski, and
we first see this kid being dared to throw a stone among a
flock of pigeons, and hoping not to hit them. When one is
injured he is told that he'll have to kill it to stop it
suffering, but unable to do that, he brings it home and
tries to help it. Messing around with a box of fireworks
means one kid gets his eyebrows burnt off and a lesson is
learned, though the kids keep hanging around a derelict
site. A bigger boy from Guatemala has joined the school,
and Julian starts getting to know him, finding that he's a
decent sort. Just as in Cyrano de Bergerac, Julian is asked
to write a Valentine's love letter for a friend, and he
makes a pretty good job of it, first consulting poetry.
He's a bright kid, and Jillian is a bright girl, and she
can figure out who wrote the letter, according to Julian's
older sister. So the boys discover early that romance is
not simple....
Perhaps it was Julian's own lackadaisical manner, but the
story didn't grip me as similar young adult tales have.
Other tales such as 'Fifteen Days Without a Head' and 'The
Elephant of Surprise' have a focal point whereas this
looser collection of chapters, though telling the tale of
the group of kids, was easier to put down. Some moments
were good, such as Julian feeling uncomfortable on a museum
trip because he's paired with a girl and they're walking
past nude statues. Then the girl says, "So I guess
underwear wasn't invented until later."
Julian has growing-up issues to cope with, such as not
being the fastest runner in school anymore, learning at
Hebrew school, and having his pals fall out with him
although he has done nothing wrong. Any young person will
face similar challenges of their own and Mark Goldblatt
show how keeping a written diary helps Julian to make sense
of his life. Many young people would not write so freely
in a school exercise so the supportive teacher is a useful
prop. TWERP is columnist Goldblatt's first novel for young
people.
Julian Twerski isn't a bully. He's just made a big mistake.
So when he returns to school after a weeklong suspension,
his English teacher offers him a deal: if he keeps a journal
and writes about the terrible incident that got him and his
friends suspended, he can get out of writing a report on
Shakespeare. Julian jumps at the chance. And so begins his
account of life in sixth grade--blowing up homemade
fireworks, writing a love letter for his best friend (with
disastrous results), and worrying whether he's still the
fastest kid in school. Lurking in the background, though, is
the one story he can't bring himself to tell, the one story
his teacher most wants to hear
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