Awards

• Winner of Garden State Children's Book Awards (Children's Fiction) 1991

Overview

When Bingo has to keep a notebook for school, all he can come up with are questions. Like how could I fall in love with three girls in three minutes? But not even his teacher, Mr. Mark, has the answers. In fact Mr. Mark has been acting pretty weird lately, and he's getting weirder. Is there more wrong with Mr. Mark than Bingo can handle?

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9780140324792

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Reviews

Once again, Byars gives us a memorable character in her portrait of Bingo, poised for his first steps into adulthood - if only he can find out what he's supposed to do. Bingo - like his school-assigned diary - is full of questions. What can he do when he falls in love with three girls within minutes, when he's not yet up to mixed-sex conversation? What should he do when he discovers that Billy Wentworth, who calls him Worm Brain, is moving in next door? And how can he respond when his teacher, Mr. Markham, hands out strange assignments: writing laudatory letters about Markham to Markham's girlfriend, and, later, writing another letter to convince someone not to commit suicide? Bingo puzzles over these ever more serious questions as he confronts a world of suddenly vulnerable adults. In less capable hands, Bingo's explorations and the events he faces, which take a more serious turn when Mr. Markham attempts suicide in the second half of the book, could be melodramatic and uneven in tone. But Byars never loses touch with the realities beneath the wryly humorous surface. She communicates her compassion for all her characters to the reader who - like Bingo - will be wiser by the book's end. (Kirkus Reviews)

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