Slider

Slider
Pete Hautman
Candlewick, 2017 275 pages
Grades 5-8
Realistic Fiction

David, a middle child stuck between an over-achieving older sister and a severely autistic younger brother often feels lost within his own family. Often serving as a caregiver for brother Mal, he feels underappreciated and invisible. To make matters worse his best friends, Cyn and HeyMan, have started spending more time alone together. Could they be dating? The one thing Davis is good at is eating. He is a bottomless pit and follows the competitive eating circuit. An on-line auction on an eBay-type site gets out of control and David finds himself the owner of a half-eaten hotdog from a competitor eater for the cost of $2,000, which has been charged to his mother's credit card. David enters panic mode and tries to brainstorm ways to raise the money before the bill arrives. Once the bill comes, David secretly kicks it behind a shelf. Luckily, hope arrives in a local competitive eating contest sponsored by his favorite pizzeria. The prize money is enough to pay off the bill with money left over. David enters the contest and begins training. He qualifies for the finals, but can he compete against adult professional eaters? Will he make it to contest before his parents discover the truth behind his rash purchase? Support comes from unexpected places and David proves that he is more than just the meat in the family slider.

Veteran author, Pete Hautman's 1996 teen novel Mr. Was continues to be one of my favorite books. Admittingly, I'm a sucker for time travel, but Mr. Was combines it with historical and gritty realistic fiction in such a page turning way that makes your brain hurt when you finish reading it. I have read many books by this author hoping for another Mr. Was, including the sequels to my favorite, yet none of his other books measure up for me. That said, Slider is an original, fun, heartwarming story that will appeal to the target audience, but is a very different book than what I was expecting from this author. Competitive eating is definitely becoming a popular "thing". My family tunes into the Coney Island hotdog competition every July 4th without fail. Young people, especially boys, are fascinated with competitive eating. After all, eating is something in which teenage boys are naturally gifted and they are all bottomless pits. It makes sense that a teenage boy should become a competitive eater and it is a topic I have previously not encountered in books for young people. Slider is funny and interesting. There is enough plot to keep readers turning pages, yet never gets bogged down. Mal, the autistic brother, gives the book an extra layer and will draw in fans of Wonder. The romance between the two friends remains innocent, as does David's budding romance at the end of the story. Mal never gets completely "fixed", but we see a significant break-through that the reader will love. Is competitive eating the healthiest pastime for young people? Uh, no. Is Slider a really fun book that tweens will loves? Yes!