Korman's Swindle

Gordon Korman is my "go to" author when I have a boy who wants a funny book. Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag, Don't Care High, The 6th Grade Nickname Game, and the more recent Schooled, Born to Rock and Son of the Mob books are all brilliant. Innovative, funny, easy to sell in one sentence. I usually have at least two copies of his titles, and have been known to threaten students lest they lose the out-of-print titles.

That said, Swindle didn't do anything for me. It was fine-- funny and well-paced with decent characters-- but too young for middle school. Also, I haven't had anyone who wants to read about baseball cards at all. This read a little too much like a 1980s title for me, something I had read before.

Mr. Korman's web site mentions two books that are coming out before too long-- The Juvie Three and The 39 Clues series, the first book of which is being written by Rick Riordan (whose fourth book, The Battle for the Labyrinth, comes out on Tuesday, although I know one teacher who already scored a copy!). I'll look forward to those, but will pass on this one.