5 Novels : Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars; Slaves of Spiegel; The Last Guru; Young Adult Novel; The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death

Rating:
Summary: The warped genius of kids' fiction
Review: Whenever I go to a bookstore with a new friend, I check out the Daniel Pinkwater section. The ones who turn out to be the best friends inevitably remember _some_ Pinkwater book from their childhood--Lizard Music or Fat Men From Space or The Magic Moscow--but the best and most resonant are Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars and The Snarkout Boys And The Avocado Of Death, and they're both included here. The former is about the best teenage-friendship book ever written, the latter drives a stake through the heart of the teenage-detective genre, and this anthology also includes the ridiculously brilliant Young Adult Novel. I want my kids to have this book. More to the point, I want my kids to think they're not supposed to be reading this book, but to read it anyway.