Halpern, Julie. Into the Wild Nerd Yonder.

Halpern, Julie. Into the Wild Nerd Yonder.
Feiwel and Friends, 2009 247p 16.99 978-0-312-38252-0 secondary When high school sophomore Jessie's long-term best friend transforms herself into a punk and goes after Jessie's would-be boyfriend, Jessie decides to visit "the wild nerd yonder" and seek true friends among classmates who play Dungeons and Dragons. High school sophomore Jessie Sloan loves math, sews her own unique skirts and has had a longtime crush on one of her older brother’s band-mates. What saves Jessie from the dreaded nerd label is her entree to her brother’s punk rock band. Her two best friends, Bizza and Char, use their friendship with Jessie to become the band’s biggest groupies, with Bizza going so far as to giving Jessie’s crush a blow job and getting an STD from him in return. Realizing that she and her friends have grown apart, Jessie searches for new friends but is dismayed that the group she seems to click with are the Dungeon and Dragon playing nerds and in the social strata of high school, association with them will “further my downward spiral into the position of First Official Dork.” As she tells her father, “I don’t want to be a nerd” and she struggles with the concept of cool and making peace with her inner nerd. She becomes more confused by her attraction to Henry, who wears his pants too short and his gym shoes too white. Jessie’s eye-opening journey from mathlete punky kid sister to Imalthia the D&D fighter who swings a big sword is honest and uncontrived. She is an engaging character, honest, direct and at times confused by the choices she must make. The plot mirrors the search for identity that many teens face in high school, with confusion that sex and alcohol define popularity and an unexpected realization that not all stereotypes are true. Halpern, through Jessie, makes it clear to readers that some choices have disastrous consequences and that in light of that, nerd-dom isn’t so bad after all. Note: brief but frank discussion and language of STD’s and a sex act make this book appropriate for high school readers. Zajko, Rosanne