Losers, Inc. - Hardcover

Mills, Claudia

3.7

108 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374346615 ISBN 13: 9780374346614

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 1997

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Ethan Winfield has never been an academic or athletic star like his older brother, Peter. But does that make him a failure? Of course not. Still, Ethan and his best friend, Julius Zimmerman, decide that they qualify to found an exclusive club: Losers, Inc.

No sooner have they done this, however, than both boys fall in love with the new student teacher. Ethan knows right away that to impress Ms. Gunderson he has to excel. Instead of reading the shortest book for his report, he has to read the longest. Instead of working with Julius on the worst project for the science fair, he has to make the best one--alone.

Unfortunately, it isn't Ms. Gunderson who falls for Ethan, but Lizzie Archer, class nerd. The teasing is unbearable! So without regard for Lizzie's feelings--and over Julius's objections--Ethan helps hatch a plot to prove that he's not Lizzie's boyfriend. The result is that even as he reports on a book that's longer than any Peter read in the sixth grade, and prepares a potentially winning science project, Ethan feels that he doesn't deserve anyone's love--not Ms. Gunderson's, not Lizzie's, not Julius's, not his own.

Claudia Mills, creator of Dinah Seabrooke (Dynamite Dinah, Dinah for President, Dinah in Love, Dinah Forever) and other overachievers, portrays a boy who needs a reason to strive, finds one, then realizes that success isn't enough. Smart, funny, and down to earth, this hero engages and entertains as he struggles mightily to grow up.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Claudia Mills is a highly regarded author of books for children, mainly middle-grade novels. Her most recent novel, Dinah Forever, was closely analyzed by The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books in its "The Big Picture" review, and was among the list of "Bulletin Blue Ribbons 1995." According to a starred review in School Library Journal, "As in previous books, Mills is particularly effective in her creation of complex relationships between characters."

Claudia Mills teaches philosophy at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where she lives with her husband and their two sons.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 4-6. Twelve-year-old Ethan Winfield thinks life is unfair. His older brother is a top student and eighth-grade basketball star at their Colorado middle school, while he prefers low-level reading books and has little aptitude for sports. When his best friend, Julius, suggests they form a club called Losers, Inc., Ethan is ready for membership, making a game of the quest for super-loser status. However, with the appearance of Ms. Gunderson, a beautiful student teacher who will help the sixth-graders prepare quality science-fair projects, Ethan comes to realize that he has no desire to do badly. In fact, his crush unleashes an unfamiliar determination to succeed that both confuses and energizes him, putting a strain on his friendship with Julius. As Ethan begins on an original and hopefully prize-winning project, he is pestered by a classmate, Lizzie Archer, who sends him love poems. He takes part in a scam to trick her into applying to a bogus poetry contest of which she will be the sole winner, but later rues his dishonesty and cruelty as he strives to be worthy of his idol, Ms. Gunderson. Pacing and readability are strengths in this third-person tale with a comfortable mix of adolescent angst and decency. The characters are believable, and even the eccentric and intellectual Lizzie, whose unpopularity overshadows her human vulnerabilities, is portrayed sympathetically. An appealing mix of classroom scenes, basketball action, and tentative steps toward maturity.?Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.