Sons of the 613

Gr 7 Up—Isaac Kaplan's Bar Mitzvah is fast approaching. In just three short weeks, he is slated for the ceremony that will formally declare him to be a man. Unfortunately, the tutor employed to school Isaac in Hebrew has failed to show up for the regularly scheduled sessions, a detail that Isaac has neglected to disclose to his parents. Now they inform him of their plans to spend two weeks in Italy, leaving his older brother in charge. It is up to Josh, a monstrous hulklike figure who has his own anger-management issues and who mysteriously returned home after one and a half semesters at NYU, to care for his younger sibling while their parents are away. Josh's preparations for his geeky younger brother's rite of passage are not the traditional tutoring sessions. Instead they include intense fitness conditioning, sleeping each night in a tent, and forays into bars and strip joints. Events are further complicated by Isaac's infatuation with Josh's friend Lesley and the uneasy tension among the three. With Lesley, Isaac experiences his first real crush and, eventually, his first heartbreak. He learns to confront his fears, including the school bully, and discover for himself what it means to be a man. "'Are you afraid of him?' I think about that. Am I afraid of him? Not anymore." Rubens captures the nerdy geekiness of middle-school-aged boys in short and snappy, cleverly formatted chapters rich with sarcasm, humor, and pathos.—Barbara M. Moon, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY