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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Calame, Dan. |
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Dan is a typical nerd, writes his own graphic novels and avoids the school jocks. He also tries hard to protect his mom, who seems to date every loser in the state of California. Dan is shocked when his mom announces she’s engaged to a local dentist she met only recently. What’s more, she has arranged for Dan and Hank, her fiancée, to go on a survivalist/camping/getting-to-know-one-another trip. She has the mistaken impression Hank is an outdoorsman. Dan recruits his best friend, Charlie (who doesn’t like germs or the outdoors), to come along. The plan is for Dan and Charlie to scare Hank off, thereby saving his mom from yet another horrible and disappointing guy. Charlie and Dan come up with plans for some revolting pranks, not realizing a cute girl will be joining the trip. Romance was not in any of the plans. And the planned pranks don’t really fit in with any romantic thoughts. Gross bodily functions, a school project, and embarrassing questions about sex were part of the plot to foil Hank’s interest in joining Dan’s family. But, the wilds of Idaho also brought marauding bears, love-struck deer, a plane crash, near starvation and other circumstances that combine to allow Dan to get to know Hank better than he thought he wanted to know him. Read the book to find out if Dan’s mother finally gets her happy ending or if Dan and Charlie succeed in driving Hank off. You’ll laugh out loud reading this one. (Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers 2017-2018 Nominees ) |
| SUBJECTS: Camping --Fiction. Practical jokes -- Fiction. Stepfamilies -- Fiction. Teenage boys -- Fiction. |
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