Thursday, January 9, 2014

Schreiber, Joe. Lenny Cyrus School Virus.


Schreiber, Joe.  Lenny Cyrus School Virus.      Houghton Mifflin  2013  284p  ISBN 978-0-547-89315-0  ms/jr  VG-BN      Fantasy    

Friends forever, Harlan and Lenny try to navigate the pitfalls of middle school.  Lenny is a geek, and he feels that his classmates shun him. He wants to get Zoey Andrews to notice him, so he comes up with an elaborate plan that involves shrinking himself, getting inside Zoey’s body, and traveling to her brain to change her mind about him.  At the same time, readers get a glimpse at the rivalries that develop as Aria and Mick put a bacterium in Zoey’s soda can so she will get sick and miss the play production in which Aria is starring. 

Readers will quickly see the humor in Lenny’s adventure as he meets first
-hand the various tiny bodies that he has looked at through his microscope.  The author personalizes the various microorganisms with catchy names and some humorous illustrations.  Although this is a humorous novel, it does show that one should really evaluate the outcomes of an experiment and its impact on others.

Summary: This is a humorous account of a science experiment that goes wrong. Lenny Cyrus tries to find out more about Zoey (a girl he has liked since third grade). He does this by shrinking himself down to amoeba size and having his friend Harlan put him in her soda can.  It is an interesting and humorous ride through Zoey’s internal pathways.
     
School stories
                                              --Linda McNeil

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