Come Fall

COME FALL

By:  A.C.E. Bauer

FIRST SENTENCE

“Salman Page shoes a table in the far corner of the Springfalls Junior High cafeteria, next to a mural of brown and purple swirls – ugly, but he’d be harder to see against it.”

SUMMARY
from goodreads

Lu Zimmer's best friend moved away last summer.  Salman Page is the new kid in school. Blos Pease takes everything literally.  Three kids who are on the fringe of the middle school social order find each other and warily begin to bond, but suddenly things start going wrong. Salman becomes the object of the school bully's torment, and Lu's pregnant mother has some unexpected complications. Is something conspiring against them?  In fact, through no fault of their own, Salman and Lu have become pawns in a game of jealous one-upmanship between Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of Faery, with the mischievous Puck trying to keep the peace. Taken from Titania's mention of a foundling in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, A. C. E. Bauer spins an original tale about magical intervention in the least magical of settings: a public middle school.

REVIEW

Poor Puck.  Just like in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck is torn between pleasing Oberon and pleasing Titania.  In Shakespeare’s play, Puck is squeezing love flower juice in the wrong person’s eyes, he’s turning a worker’s head into a donkey head, and generally causing mischief for everyone.  In Come Fall, Puck is both trying to protect Salman and trying to cause him misfortune.  All of this is on the instructions of Oberon and Titania. 

Each character has a very distinct voice.  Salman is aloof, Blos doesn’t get sarcasm, Lu is a good friend, Oberon is jealous, Titania is sneaky, and Puck is naughty.  Together, they make for an interesting cast of characters.

I liked that the story was set in a middle school.  Now that may be because I am in middle school myself, but I think there is more to it.  The middle school characters are open-minded about everything and they do not necessarily have romance on their minds. 

Overall, I enjoyed this book that shows Shakespeare in a whole new light.

RATING

4        Plot

5        Characters

4        Attention Grabbing

4        Girlie Meter

4        Ending

21      TOTAL

5        STARS