For years, Adam Canfield has been the number-one star reporter for the Harris Elementary/Middle School paper, the Slash. Nowadays he's also the most overprogrammed kid in America. Gladiator quiz bowl, jazz band, statewide test prep class - he's always running somewhere, and nine times out of ten, running late. When does a guy get time to just shoot some baskets anymore?

Then his friend Jennifer talks him into being co-editor of the Slash. Between supervising know-it-all cub reporters and arguing with Principal Marris about which articles will "propel the Good Ship Harris forward," Adam worries he might lose it altogether. But then a third grader delivers a scoop bigger than any of Adam's career, and only Adam can dig deep enough to crack through a cover-up that will rock the very foundations of Harris itself.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Michael Winerip, here is a first novel that delivers the rush of the newsroom, the adrenaline of a reporter on the trail of a hot story, and some keen insights into human nature - all with a lot of laughs.

Adam Canfield just can't cut a break. If it isn't quiz bowl, band, or homework, it's testing, annoying third-graders, or principals. Now that his friend Jennifer has roped him into being co-editor of the school paper, he stumbles upon a school scandal and must decide what to do. Patrick Lawlor juggles many subplots, as well as commentary on the current education system. While he doesn't sound like a young character, the sharp edge to his narration maintains the momentum. Lawlor does an admirable job of portraying different characters, from a hyper third-grader to a kindly custodian to the oily Ms. Maris, school principal. J.M.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

 

Michael Winerip is the author of Adam Canfield of the Slash and a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times. He says, "After I finished writing the first Adam Canfield novel, I thought, Well, that's that. But then Adam, Jennifer, and Phoebe were still staring at me, and I could see immediately that they were not done with their work. They were hungry to report more news stories, anxious to right more wrongs, desperate to tell the truth as they saw it, dying to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I knew that they needed to get busy doing what they do best, putting out the Slash, the world's greatest middle-school newspaper. And so you have it, a sequel." Michael Winerip lives in Lido Beach, New York, with his wife and four children.