The Detention Club (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Detention Club Karen Coats Yoo, David . The Detention Club. Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 2011. [304p]. ISBN 978-0-06-178378-4 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-7. The transition from elementary school to middle school isn't always easy; social strata undergo seismic shifts, and what was once cool is now unbelievably, well, not. Take Peter and Drew: they used to be the kings of recess at elementary school because of their legendary skill in collecting useless things, but now, in sixth grade, everyone seems to have forgotten that. What's worse, since puberty failed to make an appearance over the summer, they are now bully bait, targeted by Hank and Hugh Sweet, the school's most notorious thugs. Peter is nothing if not inventive, though, and hatching scheme after scheme to regain some modicum of popularity, but nothing works until he lands in detention with the very same Sweet brothers and thus finds admission to their club of delinquency. When his fellow nerds ask him to use his influence to get the Sweets off their backs, he devises ways to get his friends in trouble so they too can receive detention. Nobody writes social outcasts like David Yoo (Girls for Breakfast, BCCB 5/05, and Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before, BCCB 10/08); Peter and Drew, however, perhaps because they're too young to focus on girls, are more generally likable than Yoo's usual protagonists. Yeah, they're nerdy, but not in an obnoxious way, and they actually have redemptive qualities: senses of humor that are sarcastic and self-effacing but not dark, and sensitivity for their fellow nerds, even if one of those nerds is a sister with whom one has shared a long history of enmity. Indeed, the family humor provides the brightest spark here. Readers familiar with Yoo's YA work will be delighted and surprised by his first foray into middle-grade fiction. Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 547] Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois