A Novel for 7th graders and up (2008)<\/p>\n
Would you cheat to get better grades?
\nWould you cheat to get revenge against the tyrant who runs your school like a prison?
\nWould you cheat if a gorgeous member of the opposite sex asked you to?
\nTemptation comes in many forms, and Karl Petrofsky, gawky genius, finds it hard to resist \u2014 but he\u2019ll find it even harder to dig himself out of the hole he gets himself into by cheating.<\/p>\n
\u2022<\/p>\n
Laser\u2019s breezy prose and humorous dialogue balance his serious message about the perils of cheating and will hold the attention of reluctant readers. A well-developed cast of secondary characters, some intriguing high-tech cheating tools, and a late-breaking plot twist round out this entertaining debut that will go over well with fans of David Lubar and Gordon Korman.
\n– Booklist<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nExcerpt:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Call it Petrofsky\u2019s Dilemma. Born with the sort of brain that absorbs information the way Bounty paper towels soak up spills, Karl Petrofsky has spent most of his eleven years in school trying to hide the 100\u2019s and A+\u2019s scrawled across the top of his tests. It\u2019s no use, though. Everyone knows, and they all hate him for it — or, okay, that\u2019s a bit strong. Let\u2019s say they don\u2019t appreciate how easy school is for him.<\/p>\n
Einstein, the jocks call him.<\/p>\n
Geek God, shout the skaters, zipping by on their boards.<\/p>\n
Intel Inside, quips Mr. Imperiale, handing back Karl\u2019s A.P. calculus homework.<\/p>\n
Right now, for example, Karl is taking a chemistry test: ionic bonds, covalent bonds, van der Waals forces, that sort of thing. All around him, others sweat and writhe. You can almost hear the gastric juices swishing and bubbling in stressed-out stomachs. Meanwhile, Karl goes down the page, question by question, filling in answers with about as much agitation as a guy taking a survey. It\u2019s no wonder that most of his classmates have had the urge, at one time or another, to wring his skinny neck.<\/p>\n
This is his biggest problem in life: Unnaturally Powerful Cerebrum –> Widespread Social Rejection. Frankly, there have been times when, if a mysterious stranger had offered him Average-Student pills, he would have swallowed the whole bottle. Because he\u2019s not a nerd, he\u2019s not a brown-nose, and he hates the identity people have pinned on him. True, he\u2019s shy, and trips over his own large feet sometimes, and hasn\u2019t yet worked up the nerve to ask a member of the female gender out on a date–but he has friends, and he even makes witty remarks sometimes. Just because he possesses a multi-gigabyte memory, that doesn\u2019t make him a cybertwerp.<\/p>\n
Comments:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The concept for this book\u2014high-tech cheating in high school\u2014was suggested to me by editor Stephanie Lurie. I told her it just didn\u2019t sound like my kind of book. But then I kept thinking of comic ideas someone could use in a novel about cheating. The key was to see it as farce, not intrigue. Everything in the book followed from that.<\/p>\n
But even a farce about cheating has to confront the question of why people should or shouldn\u2019t cheat\u2014at least, I didn\u2019t see much point in writing the book just for laughs. If you\u2019re not someone who grew up under a strict moral system\u2014i.e., Do the right thing or you\u2019ll burn in hell\u2014then Why not cheat? becomes an interesting question. An awful lot of people seem to have decided that the advantages outweigh the negatives. And the standard answers (You\u2019re only cheating yourself) don\u2019t do much to clarify the issue. I hope readers will enjoy following Karl down this confusing trail\u2014and that they\u2019ll think of other points that I missed.<\/p>\n
Readers will quickly guess that I identify with Karl, the perplexed, ethically uncertain guy who finds himself tugged back and forth between the moralists and the charming cheaters. I wasn\u2019t the smartest guy in school, though, not by a long shot: one of my friends was, and I kept him in mind, loosely, as I drew this portrait of Karl. (For the record, I don\u2019t think he ever cheated in his life.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Would you cheat to get better grades? Would you cheat if a beautiful member of the opposite sex asked you to? Temptation comes in many forms, and Karl Petrofsky, gawky genius, finds it harder and harder to resist.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaser\u2019s breezy prose and humorous dialogue balance his serious message about the perils of cheating and will hold the attention of reluctant readers.\u201d\u2014 Booklist
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