Mercy on These Teenage Chimps
Grade 5–8—When friends Ronnie Gonzalez and Joey Rios turn 13, their arms suddenly seem to hang to their knees and their ears stick out. Ronnie finds himself juggling his fruit instead of eating it, and Joey is thrown off the wrestling team for hooting at his vanquished opponent. The boys agree-they've turned into chimps, just like lots of other young teens they've known. They're embarrassed by how gross they smell, how often they need to shower, and their strong interest in girls. For their simian behavior in class, the boys receive detention, and the coach puts them to work setting up the auditorium for a special assembly. There, Joey falls hard for an award-winning gymnast, and, during the ceremony, he climbs the rafters to rescue her lost balloon. When the coach berates him as she watches, he feels humiliated, runs home, climbs into the tree in his backyard, and won't come down. Ronnie tries to save his friend's reputation and gets into some adventures of his own. Mercy is a short, light novel with plenty of funny insights into what happens when puberty leaves a big banana peel in every adolescent male's path. The story is set in a Northern California town, but the messages it shares are universal.—Walter Minkel, New York Public LibraryCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.