Book Review: Slider by Pete Hautman

Publisher’s description

Competitive eating vies with family expectations in a funny, heartfelt novel for middle-grade readers by National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.

David can eat an entire sixteen-inch pepperoni pizza in four minutes and thirty-six seconds. Not bad. But he knows he can do better. In fact, he’ll have to do better: he’s going to compete in the Super Pigorino Bowl, the world’s greatest pizza-eating contest, and he has to win it, because he borrowed his mom’s credit card and accidentally spent $2,000 on it. So he really needs that prize money. Like, yesterday. As if training to be a competitive eater weren’t enough, he’s also got to keep an eye on his little brother, Mal (who, if the family believed in labels, would be labeled autistic, but they don’t, so they just label him Mal). And don’t even get started on the new weirdness going on between his two best friends, Cyn and HeyMan. Master talent Pete Hautman has cooked up a rich narrative shot through with equal parts humor and tenderness, and the result is a middle-grade novel too delicious to put down.

Amanda’s thoughts

If you would hand me a book and tell me that it’s about a kid who is into competitive eating, I’d probably say “pass.” The whole idea of eating THAT much THAT fast makes me feel barfy. But add in, “Oh, by the way, it’s by Pete Hautman,” and I’m in. I have yet to read a book by Hautman that I don’t like. And, as I’ve said a zillion times, The Big Crunch is one of my very favorite YA books ever. Also, I’m always saying I want to see NEW things in middle grade and YA, and I definitely have not seen a story about a competitive eater before.

14-year-old David means to bid $20, not $2,000 for the remains of a competitive eater’s final uneaten hot dog. Now the proud owner of this bizarre memento and deeply in debt (and about to be deeply in trouble when his mother discovers he used her credit card), he works to turn his eating skills into quick cash to bail himself out. This means lots of training (during which I found myself really wanting some pizza and also never wanting to look at pizza again) and winning a few smaller contests before he can enter the big Pigorino Pizza Bowl contest at the Iowa State Fair, which comes with a cash prize of $5,000. But David can’t spend all summer just stuffing himself with food. He also watches his 10-year-old autistic brother, Mal, and learns some new ways for them to communicate with each other and ways to help Mal feel more comfortable exploring life further from home. He also hangs out with his best friends Cyn and HeyMan, though they’re being kind of strange lately. They’ve always been the Three Musketeers, but suddenly David is feeling like the odd one out. David’s also meeting a few people from the competitive eating community and figuring out more about his place in his family, where, as middle child, he’s often felt overlooked. In typical Hautman style, this book is full of humor, heart, and just enough weirdness. The unique topic of competitive eating makes this perfect for recommending to readers looking for a good story with a strong but unusual plot. Add this one to your fall book talks and be ready for it to have a waiting list. 

Review copy courtesy of the author

ISBN-13: 9780763690700

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Publication date: 09/12/2017

Filed under: Book Reviews