Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
In Roddy Doyle's Booker Prize-winning novelPaddy Clarke Ha  Ha Ha, an Irish lad named Paddy rampages through the streets of Barrytown with  a pack of like-minded hooligans, playing cowboys and Indians, etching their  names in wet concrete, and setting fires. Roddy Doyle has captured the  sensations and speech patterns of preadolescents with consummate skill, and  managed to do so without resorting to sentimentality. Paddy Clarke and his  friends are not bad boys; they're just a little bit restless. They're always  taking sides, bullying each other, and secretly wishing they didn't have to.  All they want is for something--anything--to happen.Throughout the novel, Paddy teeters on the nervous verge of  adolescence. In one scene, Paddy tries to make his little brother's hot water bottle explode, but gives up after stomping on it just one time: "I  jumped on Sinbad's bottle. Nothing happened. I didn't do it again. Sometimes when nothing happened it was really getting ready to happen." Paddy  Clarke senses that his world is about to change forever--and not necessarily  for the better. When he realizes that his parents' marriage is falling  apart, Paddy stays up all night listening, half-believing that his vigil will  ward off further fighting. It doesn't work, but it is sweet and sad that he believes it might. Paddy's logic may be fuzzy, but his heart is in the right place.--Jill Marquis