Science Fair by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

I finished this a week ago, but I didn't blog it because I thought I had blogged it before.  This is my third time through it.  I read it once, then read it aloud to my family, and now I am reading it again because we are doing it for Mother/Son Book Club next month.  Can you tell I like this book?  This is one of the funniest books out there.  Even the third time though I found myself laughing out loud.

Toby lives with his Star Wars loving, tofu eating parents.  He attends a very prestigious public school that is terrorized by a group of snobby and bullying rich kids, called the M.E kids.  Each year the school offers a huge cash prize for the winner of the science fair, provided by a wealthy alumnus, and each year one the M.E. kids wins.  Toby and his friends suspect that the M.E. kids are cheating, but as they start to investigate their suspicions they uncover an international plot to take down the American economy.  No description I can type here can suggest how witty and clever this book is.  Barry and Pearson did a great job with the Peter and the Star Catchers series, but I think that here they are at their very best. The final 100 pages are one long, hilarious chase scene involving a bunch of adults dressed in Star Wars costumes, a giant "Wiener Mobile" and an atomic Mentos eruption (not to mention an crazed robotic spider and a floating frog).  If you have a 7-12 year old child in your life, you really should get this book and read it aloud, a chapter a night. It will give you and your young friend something to chuckle about for a long time. (394 p)