Notes from the Midnight Driver

When usually well-behaved Alex hatches one of his possibly-not-so-brilliant schemes to shake up his separated parents, it lands him in some serious hot water like with the police. But when you're a confused sixteen-year-old and your parents are separated and your father is dating your third-grade teacher you might do the same thing. When Alex is ordered to do community service at a senior center he is assigned to Solomon Lewis, or "Sol", a "difficult" senior with a lot of attitude, advice for Alex, and a puzzling (yet colorful) Yiddish vocabulary. Through their relationship, both are profoundly changed. Like "Tuesdays With Morrie," this is a surprising story of a friendship of a lifetime.

* "Sonnenblick deftly infiltrates the teenage mind to produce a first-person narrative riddled with enough hapless confusion, mulish equivocation, and beleaguered deadpan humor to have readers nodding with recognition, sighing in sympathy, and gasping with laughter — often on the same page." — Horn Book, starred review

* "Sonnenblick has created a memorable cast of characters... teens will easily connect with Alex's epiphanies... It all adds up to a funny, bittersweet tour de force." — Booklist, starred review