Amazon.com Review
When Ralph and Sylvia Nebula's pudgy parents get suckered into sending their chubby offspring to fat camp, the siblings first get angry--then they get revenge. Along with their feisty, sociopolitically savvy new friend, Mavis Goldfarb, they flee the bogus camp, where rattlesnakes run amok in the dried-up lake and clear-cut woods and inmates are forced to take classes in Creative Abuse and Motivation. (Lectures by Camp Noo Yoo owner, Dick Tator, run something like this: "Here's what you have to look forward to as a fat adult... People laugh at you in the street, insult you, and throw doughnuts at you. You lose your job collecting dead skunks for the Fish and Wildlife Service, because you're too fat. You wind up in prison for stealing pumpkin pies from the postdated pie store the day after Thanksgiving.") Disgusted by the absurdity and prejudice at camp, the three declare war on culturally supported chauvinism, and spend the rest of the summer hiding out in Mavis's house while her parents are away. Armed with biting wit and a fine-tuned sense of injustice, the friends alter billboards, heckle Junior Weight Whippers speakers, and entrap the local fat-quack doctor in his own lies on a call-in radio show. It's not until a cop nabs them at one of their commando activities that their careers as undercover social reform activists are redirected--into an equally productive and empowering (and far more legal) channel.
Daniel Pinkwater's legions of passionate fans will jump up and down for joy at his latest wacky, right-on-target story. Pinkwater, known for his National Public Radio commentaries, as well as his many kids' book titles (The Hoboken Chicken Emergency, Lizard Music, 4 Fantastic Novels, 5 Novels, and the Werewolf Club series), never, ever shies away from controversial, weird, or eccentric topics, for which we are very grateful. By the way, there is no miraculous skinny finale in Fat Camp Commandos, thank goodness--the kids end the story fit, healthy, and as pleasingly plump as ever. (Ages 8 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
To protest their enrollment at a weight-loss camp, three children become pro-pudge activists, "terrorizing ordinary citizens to awaken them from their fat-prejudice." Narrator Ralph Nebula and his sister, Sylvia, hate squalid Camp Noo Yoo, where the owner and camp director, Dick Tator, makes dire predictions about their adulthood: "You live alone in a nasty little room because no one will marry a big fat tub like you." Ralph and Sylvia befriend "a little, round fatball of fury" named Mavis Goldfarb, escape Noo Yoo and hide out at Mavis's house while her parents are away. In between delicious meals cooked by a butler, they commit acts of civil disobedience, including mixing up the diet and dessert books at the store. "Being an outlaw and a fat-revolutionary felt good," says Ralph, pictured in a "Fat People Are Happier" T-shirt. Rash (The Robots Are Coming) contributes sly images that include a Charlie's Angels-style silhouette of the trio brandishing a candy bar and an eggbeater. Pinkwater's (Rainy Morning; At the Hotel Larry) characters don't shrink from the cruel stereotypes directed at them, and they don't slim down at summer's end. Instead, they cite statistical evidence that diets don't work and thrill to a lecture by "Dr. Deepdip Cha-cha," who advises, "Don't do anything extreme.... Be nice to your body, and you will have a nice body." This unpredictable tale of vengeance shrewdly satirizes body-consciousness. Ages 8-13.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
