Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (Bccb Blue Ribbon Fiction Books (Awards)) [Hardcover]

David Lubar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 2005 | Series: Bccb Blue Ribbon Fiction Books (Awards)

Starting high school is never easy. Seniors take your lunch money. Girls you’ve known forever are suddenly beautiful and unattainable.The guys you grew up with are drifting away.And you can never get enough sleep. Could there be a worse time for Scott’s mother to announce she’s pregnant? Scott decides high school would be a lot less overwhelming if it came with a survival manual, so he begins to write down tips for his new sibling. Scott’s chronicle of his first year of bullies, romance, honors classes, and brotherhood is both laugh-out-loud funny and touchingly wise.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 7-10 -Scott Hudson is the quintessential freshman. He's small, he's lost, and seniors yoke him for spare change. His honors homework keeps him up all night and his gym teacher is trying to kill him. He joins the paper, runs for student council, and tries out for the play, just to be near a girl he likes. This all backfires. He turns out to be the least athletic sports reporter in school history, and freshman lackey to the sadists on stage crew. Meanwhile, his mother is pregnant. The plot is framed by Scott's journal of advice for the unborn baby. The novel's absurd, comical mood is evident in its entries, like "Scott Hudson's List of Good Things about Getting Beat Up," and jabs at the fetus ("I hope we can recover our investment [in baby furniture] when I sell you."). The author brings the protagonist to three-dimensional life by combining these introspective musings with active, hilarious narration. This format also breaks up the story for slower readers. Scott's character arc is extremely satisfying as he develops his true strengths over the nine months of school and the pregnancy. His interactions with the school delinquent and the heavily pierced new girl are fresh and subtle. Though Scott purposely peppers his journal with SAT words, Lubar's language use and writing style are deceptively simple. The teen's physical and emotional tumult is as clear, familiar, and complex as high school itself.-Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 8-11. Scott Hudson chronicles the ups and downs of his eventful freshman year in high school, as he joins the newspaper, works as a stage manager for the spring play, learns a lot from his outstanding English teacher, tries to help a student who attempts suicide, is beaten up because of a girl, and goes to the spring dance. Along the way, he discovers that his mother is pregnant, and he writes a series of insightful letters to his soon-to-be sibling. By the end, Scott has outgrown his freshman insecurities, realizing that he has carved a place for himself in the high-school world. The story delivers too many messages as Scott learns one important lesson after another. Still, most readers will find plenty of amusing, accurate observations about freshman life, from the insecurities of first dates to the dangers of walking the hall between classes. Todd Morning
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 279 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile; 1st Edition edition (July 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525473114
• ISBN-13: 978-0525473114
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #905,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Lubar is a genuinely funny guy who spent several years programming computer games. He has published several novels for young readers, including Flip, Wizards of the Game and Hidden Talents. Born in New Jersey, David now lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, his daughter, and three cats.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny View of Freshman Year, April 20, 2006

By 

Jarrod T Thompson "Young Adult Author" (Junction City, KS) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (Bccb Blue Ribbon Fiction Books (Awards)) (Hardcover)

Sleeping Freshman is a great book for any Young Adult to read. It is an interesting and funny perspective of Freshmen trying to fit in at the high school level.

The main character, Scott, realizes that people change and grow up as he does throughout this novel. As Scott matures, he outgrows some of his friends and realizes others are better friends than he could ever imagine.

This book is just fun and funny. As icing on the cake, Scott gets involved in everything and realizes that is one way to avoid being on the outside looking in; he is actually a somebody by the end of this year. He learns that sometimes the ideal person, like a potential girlfriend may be there all along, and once Scott stops dreaming and starts living he learns this lesson very abruptly.

What a funny and interesting view of Freshman year. I would recommend this to students, parents and teachers. This is a great book by David Lubar.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny Yet Sweet, August 25, 2005

By 

Debra Garfinkle "author of books for teens an... (Orange County, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (Bccb Blue Ribbon Fiction Books (Awards)) (Hardcover)

This is an entertaining novel about a guy's first year of high school. The main character is kind of an average joe who learns he excels at some things such as writing and fighting. His confidence leads him to stand up for himself and his friends and family when it matters.

I laughed out loud several times and smiled throughout. I liked not only the main character, but also his girl friend full of piercings and weird hair, and his guy friend who didn't always obey the law but usually meant well.

A Very fun book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hilarious and bittersweet novel about coming of age in high school, August 11, 2005

By 

KidsReads (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (Bccb Blue Ribbon Fiction Books (Awards)) (Hardcover)

"They can't expect me to be a sports writer," Scott said jocularly.

"I'm never going to survive freshman year," Scott said gravely.

"All the older kids pick on the freshmen," Scott said sophomorically.

Welcome to Scott Hudson's freshman year of high school. He isn't the handsomest or most popular guy around, and he doesn't have a clue as to how to talk to Julia, who once shared his peanut butter crackers and has morphed into the hot chick over the summer. Seniors smack him on the head on the bus. He doesn't have classes with his best friends. His Spanish teacher has a thick French accent.

On top of his woes, his parents have announced that they're having a baby, he loses out on a book reviewer's position for the school newspaper, and he gets roped into running for the student council. Mix in a gym teacher who's Satan in Nikes, some eyeroll-worthy Tom Swifties, and a sign on a locker that says, "This is not a locker," and you have a hilarious and bittersweet story about one freshman finding his place and becoming his own person almost completely by accident.

For all of us who started (or will start) high school feeling overwhelmed and out of place, Scott is a hero. Like all of us he has his strengths and weaknesses, but most importantly he keeps his sense of humor, shown through his letters to his brother and sister-to-be, and his oddly useful Guides to Surviving the perils of high school. Supported by his family and a few close friends, Scott discovers there's a lot to get out of freshman year, assuming he doesn't sleep right through it.

--- Reviewed by Carlie Webber