Guy Friday: The Loser List: Revenge of the Loser.

Kowitt, Holly. The Loser List: Revenge of the Loser.

May 2012, Scholastic.

Danny is back, having survived The Loser List, and this year, he thinks it will be different. He and Jasper have managed to get seats at a table with three girls who are not completely dorky, so it's only a matter of time before everyone realizes what an awesome artist Danny is, and Asia notices him. However, new kid Ty, with his cool hair and earthy/crunchy environmental dogooderism wows all the girls. (His floppy hair and geek chic glasses don't hurt.) No matter what Danny decides to do (do a fund raiser to take the class to a water park), Ty can do better (have a fund raiser to help disadvantaged children). One thing that Ty can't do is rap-- but he thinks he can. Danny decides to embarass Ty by encouraging Ty to participate in a talent show, which Danny goes to great lengths to stage. Ty helps even with this, getting a cool stunt cyclist Skye Blue to agree to come to the fund raiser. Even though Danny wants to get Ty away from Asia, he starts to realize that Ty is pretty cool. Can he get out of embarassing him?
Strengths: This is a notebook novel. I have some students who want to read nothing else. I like this series much more than Wimpy Kid, and the art is almost as good as Big Nate.

Weaknesses: Unlikely school situations and deus ex machina ending make me not as fond of the title, but I have to remind myself that students seem to like these situations. Almost fantasy.

Am I the only one who is slightly irritated that Jeff Kinney made $25 million last year? Couldn't we spread that around a little and give, say, a million each to Jordan Sonnenblick and other worthy authors? Does Gordon Korman make that kind of money? I'm guessing not. Makes me sad.