(Intermediate, Young Adult) Toby Wilson is a sensitive thirteen-year-old boy growing up in Antler, Texas, a town so small that Toby and his best friend Cal can view its limits from the flat-topped roof of the Bowl-a-Rama; a town where people fall prey to believing that the real world lies beyond Antler-that ""there's a whole world out there waiting in the back of magazines."" (Which is why Toby's mother is off in Nashville chasing her dream of becoming the next Tammy Wynette.) Holt wastes no time dis-mantling this small-town inferiority complex. She cleverly brings the outside world to Antler's doorstep in a subplot involving Cal's older brother Wayne (the boy-next-door-type upon whom Antler hangs its hopes) and the Vietnam war. She also brings the outside into Antler in the person of Zachary Beaver, self-proclaimed fattest-boy-in-the-world, who has parked his trailer in front of the Dairy Maid in this summer of '71. Zachary Beaver is just the distraction the people of Antler will pay two dollars to see. But to Cal and Toby, Zachary becomes more than just a curiosity. Deliberating over Zachary Beaver from their perch on the Bowl-a-Rama becomes a kind of escape: Why hasn't Paulie Rankin, Zachary's legal guardian, returned from a trip on the road? Why does Zachary sound like an encyclopedia when he tells tales of faraway places? And, if he's been baptized, why hasn't the date been entered in his Bible? In their quest to answer these questions, they inadvertently strike up a friendship that cuts to the heart of Zachary's vulnerabilities. Soon Toby and Cal are arranging to make one of Zachary's dreams come true: getting him baptized. This rebirth twists the small-town perspective in a way that serves the novel well: to Zachary, Antler becomes the place on the map that has opened his heart and his life to barely-hoped-for possibilities. Meanwhile, Toby's reality becomes painfully suffocating: he's there when the somber-faced military officers deliver news of Wayne's death; his parents' marriage, it turns out, is dissolving. Not to mention that the girl of his dreams loves someone else. Ultimately, Toby's father sees him through his pain with a loving relationship that proves to be one of the surprising strengths of the book. Telling this story in her own down-to-earth, people-smart way, Holt offers a gift. While it may not be a night out in the big city, it is a lovely-at times even giddy-date with real life. marilyn bousquin (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

When "the fattest boy in the world" rolls into Antler, Tex., in a trailer, 13-year-old Toby's perspective can't help but change. In a starred review of this National Book Award winner, PW praised the "well-developed characters, all fantastic and flawed in their own ways, [who] add plenty of spice." Ages 10-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gr. 6^-9. Nothing much happens in Antler, Texas, a place too small and boring for 13-year-old Toby Wilson's mom, who has left to try and be a country music star. She used to work at the Bowl-a-Rama Cafe, which sits across the road from the Dairy Maid. It's the summer of 1971. Toby's best friend is Cal, whose older brother is away serving in Vietnam. Then a stranger comes to town. He is Zachary Beaver, a 600-pound teenager, "the fattest man in the world," who never leaves his trailer. At first Toby and Cal come to gape at the freak show with everyone else, but when Zachary's manager disappears, the boys slowly get to know Zachary. They fight off the gawkers. With others in the town, they bring him food. Eventually, they help him step outside--not that Zachary is sweet and grateful. He's a mean liar, rude and angry, as well as achingly vulnerable. They all are. As in her first novel, My Louisiana Sky (1998), a Booklist 1999 Editors' Choice, Holt humanizes the outsider without sentimentality. Through Toby's first-person, present-tense narrative, readers get to know the place in all its flashy particulars and its gentleness. Teens will recognize how people can shut themselves into spaces that are too tight and how even a best friend can be a dork, especially when there's jealousy and failure. Some scenes are unforgettable: when Cal's mother gets the news that her son is dead in Vietnam, when Toby tries to apologize to Cal for not being able to face the funeral and their furious quarrel gives way to tears and laughter. In the tradition of many southern writers, Holt reveals the freak in all of us--and the hope of redemption. --Hazel Rochman

Gr 5-8-A humdrum Texas summer is transformed when Toby and Cal befriend a surly sideshow star, arguably "the fattest boy in the world." Holt deftly fleshes out her characters and expands their worldview beyond the borders of their small town. (Nov.) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Holt reinvents the coming-of-age story, breathing life into a quirky cast of characters that inhabits the enervated town of Antler, Texas. It's said that nothing ever happens in Antler, so the arrival of a trailer decked out with Christmas lights is news. Soon the townsfolk are lining up to peek at Zachary Beaver, world's fattest boy. A master at finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, the author peoples her town with a quiet postmaster/worm-raising father, aspiring country-singer mother, watchful sheriff, eccentric judge, town historian Miss Myrtie Mae, flirt Scarlett, and, at the center of it all, sensitive narrator Toby Wilson and his sidekick, best friend Cal. In the lazy days of one summer, Toby makes a good friend, loses his mother to the Grand Ole Opry, dances under the moonlight with heartbroken Scarlett, and tries to toughen up after the death of Cal's brother, who's been serving in Vietnam. Toby is an unusually strong narrator'awkward, earnest, and conflicted'who feels bad about a lie or simple wrongdoing. He nudges the lingering, Sunday-drive of a plot forward until, in the end, the gawked-at carnival boy in the trailer proves a most unlikely means of redemption. The events of the story combined may seem no larger than a pebble underfoot, yet the characters tug at readers, gaining steadily their attention and affection. (Fiction. 10-14)