SEVENTH-GRADE WEIRDO

Christopher (``Rob'') Robin's opinion of his family is low; he cringes at things (e.g., a precocious little sister) that most readers his age would find minor, especially compared to other junior-high humiliations; and he mightily exaggerates his troubles with a hulking eighth-grade bully and with his inability to return, without incident, the obvious interest of an older, female student. No matter. His narration as the oldest child of a surfer-dude father and a children's book mail-order business mother zings along, carrying readers through ordeals from which he sallies forth, ultimately, with admirable ease. As a result of his telling off his sister Winnie—who impersonates characters from the books she's reading—she invents a game that's about to make her a millionaire. Meanwhile, Rob stands up to the bully and starts believing in happily-ever-afters. Scanty on plot, and not for the mentally overcompensated, but very funny. (Fiction. 11- 13)