HOW DO YOU SPELL GEEK?

The trials and tribulations of starting at a new school, of being a middle-school teenager, and of being in competition with a best friend are all dealt with in a down-to-earth manner as eighth-graders compete in a spelling contest. The story is written from the point of view of Ann Keller, who is asked by the principal to befriend a new girl, a former home-schooler who is starting public school for the first time. Narrator Julie Dretzin seems to have acquired a 13-year-old's voice for the production. She applies just the right degree of teenage-girl inflection in her speech to make the characters believable and endearing, and the dialogue whimsical and snappy. J.J.F. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 99]