Sounding Off. Ted Staunton. Calgary, AB: Red Deer Press, 2004. 219 pp., pbk., $12.95. ISBN 0-88995-293-0. Grades 5-8 / Ages 10-13. Review by Dave Jenkinson. *** /4 Reviewed from prepublication copy.

excerpt:

It might be love he was feeling for Steffi. Still, he suspected it might not be if he ever talked to her. Steffi pretty much stuck to a snicker and a “Well, duh” that she delivered with a roll of her made-up eyes. Not that Sam was any talk-show host himself. The conversations he held in the privacy of his brain sparkled like diamonds. What came out of his mouth generally gleamed like rice pudding.

Staunton, the author of numerous picture books, early readers and younger middle years fiction, has produced his first YA novel, Sounding Off. Hope Springs, the locale for Staunton’s “The Kids from Monkey Mountain” series, is also home to Sam Foster, 14, who, at six foot two and 130 pounds, definitely stands out amongst his age peers. Staunton takes readers episodically through Sam’s first trying year of high school, grade nine, where, among other things, Sam’s longtime best friend, Darryl, seems to be turning on him; Sam experiences Lost, the confusing emotion adolescents undergo when they combine love and lust; and the Survival Slouch becomes Sam’s favored postural response to “skids” (the older kids at school) and most adults.

     At the book’s outset, lanky Sam finds himself garnering unwanted attention because of the flame-decalled crash helmet wedged on his head; however, what he really wants to do is to attract Madison Dakota, an attractive country pop singer he hears performing at the Hope Springs Fall Fair talent show. However, like Cinderella, Madison slips away before Sam can connect with her, and he spends a good part of the novel involved in Operation Babe Find before discovering that he has actually known “Madison” for some time but under her real name and without a wig and makeup.

     Navigating this portion of his adolescence, Sam, initially the drummer in ADHD, an alternative/grunge trio, wants to avoid the drawing the notice of either “skids” or adults, but he manages to do the opposite, and adults, especially his business woman mother, seem to involve him in “embarrassing” activities, such as helping “a bunch of grownups meddle in teen loitering.” Sam’s situation in life is also not helped by his father’s being Hope Springs High’s drama teacher. “High school was not a place for your dad to be, knowing every single thing you did.” Sam’s embarrassment increases when his father involves him in a new band, one containing adults including a cross-dressing male, a situation guaranteed to lead to new and unflattering comments from the skids. Sam also unwittingly becomes “a poster boy against censorship” and finds himself before the school board defending an English text he does not even like.

     Throughout the novel, Staunton once again demonstrates his facility with age-appropriate humor as Sam sounds off about his life. The novel’s opening portions in which Sam is trying to remove the unwanted crash helmet are especially delightfully funny. Staunton also reveals an accurate understanding of the minds of egocentric adolescents and the "strange" behaviors that flow from the many internal and external changes they are experiencing.

Recommended.

Dave Jenkinson teaches courses in YA literature at the Faculty fo Education, the University of Manitoba.

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