Carlos Is Gonna Get It (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Carlos Is Gonna Get It Deborah Stevenson Emerson, Kevin. Carlos Is Gonna Get It; Levine/Scholastic , 2008 [288p] ISBN 978-0-439-93525-8 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 6–9 “I kind of felt bad for Carlos, which you know I could never tell my friends.” So says seventh-grader Trina, classmate of the troubled Carlos, who periodically experiences what the kids call a “Day After” that leaves him talking in a weird voice, scratching himself incessantly, and muttering about aliens. The other kids, especially ringleader Thea, resent his strangeness and consider it a deliberate bid for attention, and that resentment spurs a plan to play a “trick” on Carlos to curb his strange behavior. Trina knows that Carlos really can’t help the way he is, but will that be enough to dissuade her from joining the plan? Emerson deftly juggles a collection of motivations and inclinations, both positive and negative, for Trina and sets into motion a complicated classroom dynamic wherein it’s clear that there’s constant low-grade bullying, but also that kids assigned to work with Carlos are genuinely having to do a considerable amount of extra labor. The book also creates a vivid world for Trina and her classmates: they’re a believable contingent for an urban public school, and Trina’s voice is lively and individual, with her taste for making idiosyncratic lists (Number 1 on “Problems That Carlos Has”: “He’s too small all the time”) adding readerly interest as well as personality. Also authentic are Trina’s pangs of conscience and her inability, finally, to act on them (interestingly, one of her classmates, whom she largely dismisses, manages to do the honorable thing and alert the grownups when the situation endangers Carlos); it’s sad but fair that she has to live with that failure, and it’s heartening that she genuinely gains perspective as a result. Where Duncan’s Killing Mr. Griffin (BCCB 10/78) is a moral drama of [End Page 115] taut psychological suspense, this is one of messy human realism; readers will find much to discuss here, and they may recognize analogous dynamics at play in their own peer groups. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois