There's nothing quite like receiving a package in the mail and fighting over its contents - especially when the package contains a book! But that's what happened in our household when the latest Gordon Korman book arrived from CM and I opened it in the presence of my thirteen-year-old.

In The Twinkie Squad, the reader meets Douglas Fairchild, the rich son of a diplomat. Douglas has been kicked out of every private school that

he's ever attended. The youngest child in his accomplished family, he drives people crazy with his eccentric ways, such as his preoccupation with

Pefkakia, the small nation where he happened to be born. It's not long before Douglas has to join a counselling group for problem students - "The Twinkie Squad" as it's derogatively referred to by other students. With him, he drags along Commando, another sixth grade student who happens to be a basketball star and "cool guy" who never planned on the Twinkie Squad.

Douglas always means well, but before he is through, the school will smell like rotting fish, the principal will be on the verge of a nervous

breakdown, and the counsellors of the special problem group will have met their match. Best of all, the Twinkie Squad will have achieved its potential in ways nobody could ever have anticipated. In the world of Gordon Korman, dreamers and misfits do triumph!

I enjoyed reading this book and I recommend it for grades 6 to 9. For the record, the Korman fan in our household didn't rate this her favourite, although she enjoyed it. She thought that, unlike most of Korman's other books, this one is aimed at a slightly younger reader because the main

characters are grade 6 students. As a librarian, I'll make a bet that it'll never be on the shelves long enough for you to dust it.

Highly recommended.