ANTEATER-BOY

"You wanted to tell me something, Dr. Fletcher?"

The school year is coming to an end and high school freshman Zak Dale wants a summer job to earn some money. His fish-eyed science teacher, Dr. Cyrus B. Fletcher, has a job opening but wants Zak to clean the science classroom, improve his grades, and deliver an award-winning speech to get it.

"Zak was jarred from his despair by someone at the classroom door. As he looked closely he recognized the face and the body: blonde hair, black turtleneck, blue jeans, and running shoes. Mia Holmes."

As Zak tries to prove he's the best person for the summer job, he helps his best friend Miles search for the holy grail of junk food, falls in love with the beautiful and mysterious Mia Holmes, locates his missing grandmother, neglects his bladder-challenged dachshund, and takes a journey through the American Revolution with Darius Brown, his substitute history teacher.

"Zak was amazed. Because Mia Holmes was new to the school, she didn't know he was a C minus. She didn't know he was 'blah.' She even thought he was good at American history. It was like he was a normal human being and not an anteater."

Anteater-Boy is a funny, uplifting, fast-paced coming-of-age novel about friendship and about having the courage to decide who you are and who you want to be.

You can order Anteater-Boy and The Warrensberg Trilogy (Waiting for the Voo, Escape from Dorkville and The Last Ma-Loo) from your local neighborhood bookseller. That's where I'd go.