Stuff

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAR 12, 2007

British author Strong's humorous YA novel (his first published in the U.S.), enhanced by Armstrong's manga-influenced illustrations, introduces 14-year-old Simon, or "Stuff" as his friends call him, because of the array of obscure trivia that fills his head. The British teen dreams of being an artist when he grows up. His art teacher helps him get a head start on his goal when she suggests he draw an anonymous weekly cartoon in the school publication, Art Works. Stuff's strained family and social lives offer ample fodder. In his comic, his antagonistic stepmother, Tracey, becomes an evil galactic queen, his new crush at school, Sky, morphs into the heroic Skysurfer, and his family members, teachers and classmates figure into the strip as well. Alas, not everyone is thrilled with their portrayals. Stuff feels that with his stepmother, stepsister (also 14) and their "radical feminist" rabbit (she attacks only men) so completely entrenched in his life, he has no option but to run away. Stuff's personable, scattershot narration brims with both British slang and his own invented vocabulary ("Naff off, Darcy, you dingoid, or I'll make your brains into kebabs"), and a concluding glossary is written in his infectious voice. Readers should enjoy keeping pace with Stuff's verbal barrages and his tumultuous family and love lives, which are punctuated with dredged-up memories, flashbacks and Armstrong's hilarious drawings. Ages 12-up.