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Extreme Elvin
Author(s): Chris Lynch (Author)
- Publisher: Harpercollins Childrens Books
- Publication Date: January 1, 1999
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 230 pages
- ISBN-10: 0060280409
- ISBN-13: 9780060280406
Book Description
Elvin has faced many challenges in the past and has come away from them all successfully, but now he is faced with his most difficult encounter of all as he must approach the girl he loves and tell her how he feels.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Look out world, Elvin Bishop is back, and he’s better–if a little less bigger–than ever. Author Chris Lynch’s overweight antihero has slimmed down a bit since his debut in Slot Machine, and has moved from the frying pan of sports camp into the fires of high school. With the help of his two best friends, Frankie and Mike, Elvin prepares to conquer the hormone-drenched horrors of ninth grade. Almost immediately he finds himself dealing with a bad case of hemorrhoids (“No, it doesn’t hurt much… run and find me a tree branch that’s on fire and I’ll show ya”), surviving a traumatizing trip to the Big & Tall men’s store, and suffering a close encounter of the heartbreaking kind. But when the going gets tough, at least Elvin knows he can depend on his offbeat mom to empathize–even though her loving advice is often given with more than a few grains of sarcasm.
With this second Elvin tale, Lynch has once again hit the funny bone on the head. Teens (if they can stop giggling long enough) will appreciate his graceful way of making adolescent pain evoke sympathetic chuckles. His hilarious portrayal of the nightmare that is young adulthood (“Young adult. You know that one was dreamed up by an old adult”) makes clear that rather than poking fun at teens’ woes, Lynch is laughing right alongside them. (Ages 12 to 15) –Jennifer Hubert
From School Library Journal
Grade 8-10?Elvin Bishop’s story, begun in Slot Machine (HarperCollins, 1995), continues, but there is no need to read that book first. Here readers meet Elvin during the opening weeks of his freshman year of high school, a time when his since-kindergarten friendships with Mikie (aka “Dad”) and smooth-talking Frankie undergo the tests of each guy’s changing perceptions of important. Elvin’s widowed mother is always there for her chubby, uncertain son and yet she is, of course, completely willing to embarrass him for his own good. Elvin is smart enough to keep her in ignorance about his hemorrhoids and tentative enough to let her arrange his first official date. Elvin’s realization of the value of girls to the species is humorously and credibly threaded throughout the plot but romance isn’t the theme here so much as benevolence. Benevolence’s shadow is suitably portrayed by evil upperclassmen whose torture repertoire is heavy on threats and insinuations, but also includes extortion and disconcerting applications of petroleum jelly-based salves and alcoholic beverages. This is a funny, insightful, and wholly engaging novel that addresses many of the worst fears of adolescent boys without preaching. It is possible to be just like Elvin and still laugh at his numerous follies. His story makes a great booktalk but will also prove popular enough to pass from reader to reader without adult intervention.?Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
PLB 0-06-028210-X Pudgy, frantic Elvin, introduced in Slot Machine (1995), takes a hilarious, roller-coaster plunge into Young Adulthood. Going, perhaps, where no YA author has gone before, Lynch afflicts his hero with hemorrhoids (“ `It shows?’ `No, you could have a squirrel down your pants making you walk that way’ ”), then heaps on the stress by having him lock eyes with friendly, Junoesque Barbara and hold hands with Sally, a dazzler who later, as a practical joke, announces that she has scabies. The ensuing rumors that she gave him an STD gives him a social leg up, plus a party invitation from Darth, a smooth, menacing teen Svengali. Supported by a cast of familiar types, led by his sensitive but not entirely earnest mother, Elvin struggles desperately to keep his balance in the rush of eventsand fails. His exaggerated emotional highs and lows drive Barbara away (not forever, one hopes) and turn the party into a complete personal disaster. Lynch opts to end on a downswing, with Elvin miserably hiding out in the garage licking his wounds, but readers will be breathlessnot only from laughter and the story’s headlong pace, but from the author’s audacity in his choice of topics for comic inquiry. (Fiction. 12-15) — Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
“Crisp, humorous, sarcastic, sad, sensitive, realistic, and something raunchy, but never dull. An unforgettable read.” — — Voice of Youth Advocates
About the Author
Chris Lynch is the author of several highly acclaimed books for young adults, including Iceman, Shadow Boxer, and Slot Machne, all ALA Best Books for Young Adults and ALA Recommended Books for Young Readers, as well as Extreme Elvin.
