Hey, remember the Ask The Readers book I put you guys onto in July, about the kid with the glider and the school play?   I ordered a copy from Half.com and re-read it in about an hour and a half — and it’s really good!   A lot of the books I liked from back then have aged poorly (the one where Darien is torn between jerkily inattentive college-bound boyfriend Paul and semi-creepy rock star Ryley — dig the try-hard names — is a good example), but this one is sweet.

Todd Domke moves the plot of Grounded right along; it’s not ultra-credible, but it has the same quality to it that I like about Rushmore, and the friendship between Max and Dirk.   It’s unlikely, but Domke doesn’t waste time explaining why any of the plot points could happen this way, or defending his timeline.   And it doesn’t take itself too seriously, either — the book is quite funny — which helps.

Whether today’s reader would enjoy it, I don’t know.   It doesn’t have too many dated references, except that several scenes take place in a soda fountain, which I had to have explained to me as a contemporary of the protagonist — even though my town actually had a soda fountain, I believe, until the early eighties.   Why we never went to it is an entry for another time, although explaining the faintly ominous kid-proof twilight in which the soda fountain’s host, Kress, existed is probably beyond my powers in the second place.

But the book itself works.   I don’t know why I dug the boy on the cover the most, but the character as written is pretty rad.   If you see a copy at a library sale, try it.

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