![]() ![]() As Ross Maloy, the protagonist of Rob Harrell’s terrific new book, WINK (Dial, 320 pp., $16.99 ages 9 to 12), says: “Can I tell you how sick I am of being different? I hate it! You have no idea what I’d give to be normal.”īy most measures, Ross is already a normal seventh grader doing normal seventh-grade stuff: learning guitar, playing video games, dealing with a bully and drawing his homemade comic strip, “Batpig.” What sets Ross apart from his classmates is his cancer diagnosis. ![]() After all, when you feel like a freak, the desire to blend in with the crowd must be overwhelming. It makes sense, then, that teenagers want so badly to fit in. No wonder so many of us look back on those years with about as much fondness as we have for cafeteria food. Bodies stretch and bend like Silly Putty. As the father of two teenagers who have recently emerged from puberty, I can tell you that children are freaks in middle school. Everybody feels like a freak in middle school. ![]()
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