SLOB

Owen Birnbaum is 57 percent fatter than the national average for boys his age. Owen Birnbaum is one point short of being a genius. Owen Birnbaum has a sister named Jeremy. Owen Birnbaum is a bully magnet.

In SLOB, Ellen Potter tells Owen's story through his brilliant, cynical point of view. Hilarious, yet somewhat sad, twelve-year-old Owen begins his story on a day only slightly less bearable than every other day. When he goes to his recycled-sock lunch box and pulls out his eco-friendly Oreo cookie container, however, his day gets a whole lot worse. The Oreos are gone! Now this may not seem like a big deal to you, its just three dumb cookies. But for Owen its devastating. In a world of bullies, gym teachers, and psychopath new-kids with a burned face and a switchblade in their sock, sometimes eating three dumb cookies is all a kid can do to keep it together. He has to find out who took them.

As we follow Owen on this quest to find the thief, however, we find out that there is a lot more to him than being fat and smart. As the story unfolds, Potter presents us with some very intriguing plot points. Aside from "who is stealing the cookies?", we are forced to ask why Owen suddenly gained so much weight (he used to be skinny, you know); why his Mom does not seem to remember when he was skinny; what is the purpose of Nemesis, the mysterious machine made of junk in his bedroom; and why he treasures a little green slip of paper with the word "SLOB" written on it. This book is an amazing opportunity to work on predictions and inferences. Ellen Potter gives us readers very little information outright, so we are left asking questions until the very end.

Potter also has a masterful use of imagery. At one point in the book, Owen is rummaging around a New York City demolition site looking for another part for Nemesis, when he hears a noise from inside the destroyed tenement building. Frozen, he watches as giant cockroaches, the size of men with metal pipes for feelers, crawl out of the rubble, plink-ing along. Of course, Owen is smart enough to realize that these are not really cockroaches, but as scared for his life as he is at that very moment, he is not going to take the time out to explain "metaphor" to us.

The way Owen speaks to us-- sincerely, yet full of humor-- we can not help but grow attached to him, root for him, and hope everything turns out well for him in the end. He speaks to us like a confidant, a trusted friend who needs to know his story even when its humiliating, even when he cries.

The story, like Owen, is brilliant; however, it seems to end rather abruptly. As the answers to all of our questions begin to fall into place, there is suddenly one major climactic event, and then the novel is wrapping itself up. Personally, I was not ready to let go of Owen Birnbaum yet, and found it difficult to end the narrative so curtly. While the ending was in no way dissatisfying, it just seems to have come on quickly. Although the entire story required some incredible leaps of faith to keep up with Owen, the brusque, tidy ending was by far the hardest part to swallow.

Regardless, bully-magnet Owen Birnbaum is an endearing young man who will have us laughing out loud as we try to figure out why three dumb cookies are so darn important.