![]() ![]() Despite his brief foray into jerkhood, Max is incontrovertibly not just a funny guy but a good guy, a fact that his friends-including the girls he's starting to notice-certainly appreciate. ![]() The book conveys with keen perception the revelations that persona can be a choice and that people tend to take us as we offer ourselves it's also sympathetically realistic about the need to calibrate that choice a little in the face of its consequences (Max ends up as an accessory to some pretty jerky behavior, which he regrets). With its comic, self-aware tone (accented with reams of footnotes, hence the titular asterisk) and marginal spot art, Max's narration will be familiar to readers of the Wimpy Kid series, while his experience of camp as a life-changing opportunity recalls Chris Lynch's Extreme Elvin (BCCB 2/99). ![]() "Mad Max," complete with headband, joins a group of other kids there and enjoys the novel taste of daring and independence-until his new friends turn out to be more trouble than even Mad Max is seeking. ![]() Except for the time I decided I didn't want to be a good kid anymore." That time is the summer after Max's seventh grade, when Max and his parents attend a family camp and he decides to reinvent himself as a cooler, older guy. ![]()
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