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Summary
Summary
The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. She says: "My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss." He says: "It's been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort." But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down. And just as he's thinking there's more to her than meets the eye, she' s thinking that he's not quite all he seemed.
This is a classic romantic comedy of errors told in alternating chapters by two fresh, funny voices. Wendelin Van Draanen is at her best here with a knockout cast of quirky characters and a hilarious series of misunderstandings and missed opportunities. But underlying the humor are two teens in transition. They are each learning to look beyond the surface of people, both figuring out who they are, who they want to be, and who they want to be with.
Author Notes
Wendelin Van Draanen was born on January 6, 1965 in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of chemists who emigrated from Holland. She worked as a math teacher and then as a computer science teacher before becoming an author. Wendelin Van Draanen began her writing career with a screenplay and soon switched to adult novels and then children's books. She is best known for her Sammy Keyes series of novels, which she started writing in 1997, featuring a teenage detective named Samantha Keyes. Her popular Sammy Keyes series had been nominated four times for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Children's Mystery and won with "Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief". Her Shredderman series also yielded a Christopher Medal for Secret Identity. She has also written several novels such as: How I Survived Being a Girl and Flipped.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Horn Book Review
Ever since second grade, Juli and Bryce have had one thing in common: JuliÆs affections for Bryce are as unyielding as BryceÆs efforts to evade them.áThen in eighth grade, the roles are reversed, as Bryce begins to open his eyes to the truth about those around him.áJuli and Bryce's individual viewpoints--presented in alternating, first-person chapters--are adeptly portrayed in this tale of maturation and first love. From HORN BOOK Spring 2002, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-10-Julianna, one of those most unconventional innocents who forges ahead through life regardless of not fitting in, worships her new good-looking and conventional neighbor, Bryce, from the day he moves in. The inauspicious beginning of their relationship at age seven is told and retold from the perspective of both in this audio version of the book by Wendelin Van Draanan (Knopf, 2001). With outstanding narration by Andy Paris in Bryce's chapters and Carine Montbertrand in Julianna's chapters, listeners can grow with the two children until we find them in eighth grade, a time of many changes. Bryce has come to look at his family and father in a new way, and Julie has also experienced seeing her family and its situation through the lens of greater maturity and experience. Bryce grows to see his pesky and un-cool neighbor in a new and very positive way just as Julianna develops a determination to continue on her own path without ever connecting with Bryce, complicating the potential for romance. Still, the story's major events are told from a dual perspective, and listeners are treated to readings with a great deal of emotional depth. This believable story has many humorous as well as touching scenes, making it lively and engaging. It shows characters developing an understanding of the adults around them in very positive ways. The book's simple but attention-getting cover illustration is repeated on the cassette package, and each tape includes a chapter listing on the label. Any collection for teen and older preteen readers will find this an appealing addition, especially as it focuses on accepting and valuing the inner person over outer superficialities.-Jane P. Fenn, Corning-Painted Post West High School, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Two distinct, thoroughly likable voices emerge in Van Draanen's (the Sammy Keyes series) enticing story, relayed alternately by eighth graders Bryce and Juli. When Juli moved in across the street from Bryce, just before second grade, he found the feisty, friendly girl overwhelming and off-putting, and tried to distance himself from her but then eighth grade rolls around. Within the framework of their complex, intermittently antagonistic and affectionate rapport, the author shapes insightful portraits of their dissimilar families. Among the most affecting supporting characters are Bryce's grandfather, who helps Juli spruce up her family's eyesore of a yard after Bryce makes an unkind remark about the property, and Juli's father, a deep-feeling artist who tries to explain to his daughter how a painting becomes more than the sum of its parts. Juli finally understands this notion after she discovers the exhilaration of sitting high in a beloved tree in her neighborhood ("The view from my sycamore was more than rooftops and clouds and wind and colors combined"). Although the relationship between Bryce's grandfather and his own family remains a bit sketchy, his growing bond with Juli is credibly and poignantly developed. A couple of coincidences are a bit convenient, but Van Draanen succeeds in presenting two entirely authentic perspectives on the same incidents without becoming repetitious. With a charismatic leading lady kids will flip over, a compelling dynamic between the two narrators and a resonant ending (including a clever double entendre on the title), this novel is a great deal larger than the sum of its parts. Ages 10-14. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Gr. 5-8. The author of the popular Sammy Keyes mysteries proves herself just as good at writing a charming romance. From the moment seven-year-old Bryce moves into the neighborhood, Julianna is enthralled: "It's his eyes . . . they're dazzling." Bryce, on the other hand, is horrified. In typical second-grade boy fashion, he believes that "All I've ever wanted is for Juli Baker to leave me alone." Six years later, however, the two have flipped: now Bryce is enthralled with Juli's uniqueness, and Juli is repulsed by Bryce's selfish immaturity. Told in alternate chapters from each teen's perspective, this is a wry character study, a romance with substance and subtlety. Juli gradually learns the painful lesson that she must look beyond gorgeous eyes and popularity. Bryce slowly realizes his grandfather's wisdom: "Every once in a while you'll find someone iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare." Both teens realize that standing up for what--and whom--they believe can be a difficult challenge, one faced best with true friends and close family. --Frances Bradburn
Kirkus Review
Proof that the course of pubescent love never runs smooth. When Bryce and Julianna (Juli) meet, they are both seven and Bryce has just moved in across the street. For Juli, it is love at first sight: "The day I first met Bryce Loski, I flipped. Honestly, one look at him and I became a lunatic. It's his eyes." As far as Bryce is concerned, the feeling is definitely not mutual: "All I've ever wanted is for Juli Baker to leave me alone. For her to back off-you know, just give me some space." Six years after their meeting, Bryce is something of a judgmental priss (just like his father), and Juli is full of passion and enthusiasm for life. But in their eighth-grade year, Juli's fight to save an old tree from being cut down causes Bryce to look at Juli with growing admiration-just at the same time that Juli finally realizes that Bryce's character does not measure up to his eyes. The story is told in both voices, in alternating chapters that develop from a sort of "he said, she said" dialogue into an exploration of perception, misapprehension, and context. Van Draanen (Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy Mystery, 2000, etc.) deftly manages the difficult task of establishing and maintaining the reader's sympathy with both characters. The text stretches credibility in a couple of ways, especially with the premise that a seven-year-old is capable of a long-lasting romantic infatuation. It is, nevertheless, a highly agreeable romantic comedy tempered with the pointed lesson (demonstrated by the straining of Bryce's parents' marriage) that the "choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life." (Fiction. 10-14)
Excerpts
Excerpts
Diving Under All I've ever wanted is for Juli Baker to leave me alone For her to back off-you know, just give me some space. It all started the summer before second grade when our moving van pulled into her neighborhood. And since we're now about done with the eighth grade, that, my friend, makes more than half a decade of strategic avoidance and social discomfort. She didn't just barge into my life. She barged and shoved and wedged her way into my life. Did we invite her to get into our moving van and start climbing all over boxes? No! But that's exactly what she did, taking over and showing off like only Juli Baker can. My dad tried to stop her. "Hey!" he says as she's catapulting herself on board. "What are you doing? You're getting mud everywhere!" So true, too. Her shoes were, like, caked with the stuff. She didn't hop out, though. Instead, she planted her rear end on the floor and started pushing a big box with her feet. "Don't you want some help?" She glanced my Way. "It sure looks like you need it." I didn't like the implication. And even though my dad had been tossing me the same sort of look all week, I could tell-he didn't like this girl either. "Hey! Don't do that," he warned her. "There are some really valuable things in that box." "Oh. Well, how about this one?" She scoots over to a box labeled LENox and looks my way again. "We should push it together!" "No, no, no!" my dad says, then pulls her up by the arm. "Why don't you run along home? Your mother's probably wondering where you are." This was the beginning of my soon-to-become-acute awareness that the girl cannot take a hint. Of any kind. Does she zip on home like a kid should when they've been invited to leave No. She says, "Oh, my mom knows where I am. She said it was fine." Then she points across the street and says, "We just live right over there." My father looks to where she's pointing and mutters "Oh boy." Then he looks at me and winks as he says, "Bryce, isn't it time for you to go inside and help your mother?" I knew right off that this was a ditch play. And I didn't think about it until later, but ditch wasn't a play I'd run with my dad before. Face it, pulling a ditch is not something discussed with dads. It's like, against parental law to tell your kid it's okay to ditch someone, no matter how annoying or muddy they might be. But there he was, putting the play in motion, and man, he didn't have to wink twice. I smiled and said, "Sure thing!" then jumped off the liftgate and headed for my new front door. I heard her coming after me but I couldn't believe it. Maybe it just sounded like she was chasing me; maybe she was really going the other way. But before I got up the nerve to look, she blasted right past me, grabbing my arm and yanking me along. This was too much. I planted myself and was about to tell her to get lost when the weirdest thing happened. I was making this big windmill motion to break away from her, but somehow on the downswing my hand wound up tangling into hers. I couldn't believe it. There I was, holding the mud monkey's hand! I tried to shake her off, but she just clamped on tight and yanked me along, saying, "C'mon!" My mom came out of the house and immediately got the world's sappiest look on her face. "Well, hello," she says to Juli. Hi!" I'm still trying to pull free, but the girl's got me in a death grip. My mom's grinning, looking at our hands and my fiery red face. "And what's your name, honey?" "Julianna Baker. I live right over there," she says, pointing with her unoccupied hand. "Well, I see you've met my son," she says, still grinning away. "Uh-huh!" Finally I break free and do the only manly thing available when you're seven years old-I dive behind my mother. Mom puts her arm around me and says, "Bryce, honey, why don't you show Julianna around the house?" I flash her help and warning signals with every part of my body, but she's not receiving. Then she shakes me off and says, "Go on." Juli would've tramped right in if my mother hadn't noticed her shoes and told her to take them off. And after those were off, my mom told her that her dirty socks had to go, too. Juli wasn't embarrassed. Not a bit. She just peeled them off and left them in a crusty heap on our porch. I didn't exactly give her a tour. I locked myself in the bathroom instead. And after about ten minutes of yelling back at her that no, I wasn't coming out anytime soon, things got quiet out in the hall. Another ten minutes went by before I got the nerve to peek out the door. Excerpted from Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
