Reinvention of Edison Thomas

by Jacqueline Houtman

Overview

Eddy's a science geek and has problems communicating with others. The combination gives the class bully, who pretends to be Eddy's friend, plenty of ammunition. Eddy Thomas can read a college physics book, but he can't read the emotions on the faces of his classmates. He can spend hours tinkering with an invention, but he can't stand more than a few minutes in a noisy crowd, like the crowd at the science fair, which Eddy fails to win. When the local school crossing guard is laid off, Eddy is haunted by thoughts of the potentially disastrous consequences and invents a traffic-calming device, using parts he has scavenged from discarded machines. By trusting his real friends, Eddy uses his talents to help others and rethinks his purely mechanical definition of success.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590789513
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	09/01/2012
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	780L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jacqueline Houtman holds a Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She writes about a variety of biomedical topics, including asthma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and AIDS. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin. This is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

"[A] wry debut. . . . The author has a particularly engaging way of tracking Eddy's thought processes as he struggles to wrest order from a seemingly chaotic world." —Kirkus Reviews


"A perceptive look at a complicated mind. . . . The quirky humor and authentic characters should have wide appeal." —Publishers Weekly

* "Move over, Joey Pigza! Here comes another exceptional spokesman for people with learning disabilities. . . . Because Eddy is such an endearing character who clearly explains his thinking and actions, this book deserves a place on every elementary and middle school shelf. It should be read not only by kids who go to school with an Eddy, but by teachers who teach an Eddy." —Library Media Connection, starred review

From the Publisher

A middle grader with a high-function spectrum disorder finds some real friends in this wry debut. Eddie may be a genius when it comes to scientific knowledge and to repurposing broken appliances, but the best he can do socially is to treat others as distractions with inscrutable motives. Falling in with proudly geeky classmate Justin and Justin's maverick friend Terry (whom Eddie thinks is a boy until Justin sets him straight) leads to several breakthroughs, as both see through his habitual brusqueness and are willing to clue him in on the nuances of social cues. The author has a particularly engaging way of tracking Eddie's thought processes as he struggles to wrest order from a seemingly chaotic world, constructs through trial and error an ingenious homemade device for controlling traffic at a dangerous intersection and interacts sans real comprehension with peers and others. By the end readers will understand why Justin and Terry find Eddie worth knowing, but the way the central characters talk and think about science creates another theme that's just as strong and satisfying. (Fiction. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews

Houtman's debut presents the singular voice of Eddy, who sees the world from a different angle. He attends Drayton Middle School, but prefers disassembling old machines in his basement, gathering scientific facts (which he shares in excerpts from the “Random Access Memory of Edison Thomas”), practicing Morse code, and avoiding loud noises, crowds, and Mitch (a friend-turned-bully). Eddy sees a counselor, who aids him in developing his nearly nonexistent social skills—despite having a head for facts and data, he's incapable of understanding figures of speech—and managing his general anxiety (“He had made a huge logical error. As big as Uluru/Ayers Rock [346 meters high]. No, even bigger”). When the local crossing guard's position is eliminated, Eddy invents a device to make the intersection safe. With help from his classmate Justin, Eddy might just win first place at the regional science fair and make his first true friend. A perceptive look at a complicated mind, the novel is steeped in the world of science (binomial nomenclature appears throughout), and the quirky humor and authentic characters should have wide appeal. Ages 8-up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 5–8—Eddy is distraught when his entry in the science fair doesn't win. When his disappointment, coupled with the gymnasium hubbub, peaks, he squats on the floor, covers his ears, rocks, and chants chemical-compound names to himself. Eddy's sensitive nerves act like antennae, soaking up anxieties that cause him to recoil. The boy has high-functioning Asperger's syndrome and his intolerance of noise, and of other students' inadequate entries, is real—sadly, as real as the people who avoid him. Former playmates have grown up and turned into mean adolescents. At the same time, Eddy overlooks students who try to befriend him, because he is unable to understand social cues. When the school's crossing guard is let go, the boy obsesses over every imaginable calamity that could happen to children in the street. He loves the structure of science and tinkers endlessly with recycled gizmos and wires, and, following his counselor's advice, puts his worry to work inventing a traffic-signal device. It's curious to walk with a mind that works differently, where channels are isolated, fraught, and amplified, but readers will get a chance to do just that with this protagonist. Unfortunately the secondary characters are shallow and unconvincing. Also, the clever insertion of Latin scientific names and other facts from Eddy's bank of "random access memory" illustrates his extreme intelligence and will make the title appealing to science fans, but for average readers such detail is overwhelming and distracting.—Alison Follos, North Country School, Lake Placid, NY

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