This Is Just a Test

In this sensitively written story from Rosenberg (Nanny X) and Shang (The Way Home Looks Now), 12-year-old David is torn between two identities and two friends, and since it's the Reagan-era '80s he's also terrified of nuclear war. David's Chinese and Jewish grandmothers have uprooted themselves to be closer to David and his sister, and both women vie to make their culture the dominant one in the house. At school, David jumps at the chance to learn how to be smooth around girls from popular student Scott. David's best friend Hector rounds out a trivia team that Scott and David form, but Hector's uncool tendencies (such as his repeated references to old movies) lead David to leave Hector out of Scott's new project: digging a fallout shelter. David is also preparing for his bar mitzvah, a journey filled with humor, emotional depth, and important realizations about what it means to be a friend and to embrace multiple cultures. His struggle to make sense of the Cold War will resonate with readers grappling with a confusing political climate themselves. Ages 8-12. Agent: (for Shang) Tracey Adams, Adams Literary; (for Rosenberg) Susan Cohen, Writers House. (June)

Gr 4-8--It's 1983, and David's got worries: his impending bar mitzvah, his constantly competing Chinese and Jewish grandmothers, the cute girl who makes him nervous, and his popular new friend, who dislikes David's longtime best friend--plus, it's the height of the Cold War, and nuclear annihilation could hit at any second. David's lightly anxious tone; the progressively funny handful of short, dialogue-based scenes per chapter; the realistically kooky family members; and the 1980s middle-class suburban setting are so strongly reminiscent of Judy Blume's "Fudge" books that a well-versed reader might accidentally refer to the protagonist as "Peter." The authors cram in a lot of 1980s references (David Hasselhoff, Betamax). It's refreshing to meet a male protagonist who, like Tara in Paula Freedman's My Basmati Bat Mitzvah, is struggling with how to be authentically Jewish in a bicultural family. VERDICT Giggle-inducing, light, and charmingly realistic fiction that will resonate with a wide variety of readers.--Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC