About this item
In this highly anticipated second novel by the author of the award-winning, bestselling The Thing About Jellyfish, being the new kid at school isn't easy, especially when you have to follow in the footsteps of a classroom prankster like Paulie Fink.When Caitlyn Breen enters the tiny Mitchell School in rural Mitchell, Vermont, she is a complete outsider: the seventh grade has just ten other kids, and they've known each other since kindergarten. Her classmates are in for a shock of their own: Paulie Fink--the class clown, oddball, troublemaker, and evil genius--is gone this year. As stories of Paulie's hijinks unfold, his legend builds, until they realize there's only one way to fill the Paulie-sized hole in their class. They'll find their next great Paulie Fink through a reality-show style competition, to be judged by the only objective person around: Caitlyn, who never even met Paulie Fink. Who was this kid, anyway--prankster, performance artist, philosopher, or fool? Caitlyn's quest to understand Paulie is about to teach her more about herself than she ever imagined.Told via multiple voices, interviews, and other documents, The Next Great Paulie Fink is a lighthearted yet surprisingly touching exploration of how we build up and tear down our own myths...about others, our communities, and ourselves.
About the Author
Ali Benjamin is the New York Times bestselling author of THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH, which was a National Book Award finalist. The book earned five starred reviews and was named a best book of the year by Amazon, TIME Magazine, NPR, Publisher's Weekly, School Library Journal, the New York Public Library, the New York Times, and more. The book has been translated into 20 languages in more than 30 foreign territories. OddLot Entertainment recently nabbed the film rights, with Reese Witherspoon, Gigi Pritzker, and Bruna Papandrea producing. Ali was also the co-writer for Tim Howard's New York Times bestseller THE KEEPER and Paige Rawl's POSITIVE.
Once upon a time, Ali thought she was going to grow up to be a New York Yankee, or perhaps Spiderman. Instead, Ali lives and writes in rural Massachusetts. She lives with her family and two rescue dogs: a charmingly intense Australian shepherd named Mollie and a gentle, skittish all-American mutt named Charlie Brown.
