Book Review Archive

5 June 2008

Egghead by Caroline Pignat. Red Deer Press, 2008. Ages 9-13.

          I let her lead me away, trying to convince myself that Will could take care of himself.

          Yeah, right.

          That, if things went bad, somebody in the crowd would do something to help.

          As if.

          That Will didn't know I was there, and wouldn't know that I had abandoned him.

          I abandoned him.

Written in alternating voices, chapter by chapter, Egghead relates events through the eyes and experiences of Katie and Devan. Not only are the voices well differentiated, their narratives show poignantly how easily misunderstandings occur. Spoken dialogue is almost identical in both accounts, yet the individual interpretations are at times poles apart. 

A third point of view, Will's, is revealed in brief freeform poems interspersed between the short chapters by Katie and Devan. Will expresses in his poetry what he cannot say in real life. Although an outsider and an outcast, he seems to have the most accurate perceptions of the three characters. Even Will, however, is painfully misled at moments when it matters most.

Humor plays an important part in the book, although this is not a comedy. Is it funny to pour a can of coke into the class aquarium? To hide a dead rat in the teacher's desk drawer? To push someone out of the locker room and lock the door, leaving him stranded in the hall in his underwear?

Does laughing make one an accomplice? What about standing by doing nothing? Or walking away? 

Egghead is a sensitive portrayal of the dynamics behind bullying, peer pressure, and search for identity. The story resists black and white distinctions of "good guys" and "bad guys." Clearly there is some of each in every character--making it impossible to pin neat labels on the participants or glibly assign blame. 

When a skiing accident leaves Will in the hospital, only Katie visits him. Devan, however, stops by to see his aunt, a nurse, and unexpectedly finds himself in awkward conversation with Will.

          "Looks like they got you pretty much cocooned there, don't they?"

          "Yes. I'm a regular chrysalis, aren't I?" He relaxes a bit, settling back

     on his pillow. "Think I'll become a butterfly?"

          "Who knows?" I say, staring hard at the floor. "Depends on if you think

     people can change."

There are no easy answers. But Egghead asks the right questions--and starts readers on the road to discovering answers of their own.