Just Finished Reading The Absolute Value of Mike by Kathryn Erskine

The Absolute Value of Mike is a short 2011 teen-level novel by Kathryn Erskine.  Mike, a 14-year old challenged by anything mathematical, happens to have as his widowed father a renowned mathematician who has great plans for his son's future in engineering...too bad Mike doesn't in any way want to be an engineer!  Dad one day tells Mike that he will be going to teach a few weeks in Romania, and that Mike will be staying with Aunt Moo and Uncle Poppy out in a small Pennsylvania town where Poppy is developing an artesian screw.  Mike doesn't know this aunt and uncle of his father and knows that such an engineering project is designed to enable him to go to a science-based special school that he wants to avoid...so the summer stay-over appeals very little to him.  When he arrives there, he finds the situation completely unlike what he had expected...and through the various crises affecting those living there he discovers his own special talents and calling...

Erskine injected a lot of humor into her story, which Mike tells in the first person.  Her protagonist, although just a kid, seems to be the only one around who is capable of thinking clearly...in a curious way this causes him at times to descend into angry fits at different people whose self-absorption and grief have allowed them to renege on their responsibilities to each other and to themselves.  The town's big project is to raise enough money in a short time for one of its residents to be able to adopt Misha, a Romanian orphan...and Mike finds himself unwillingly put in charge of it all.  But before anything can be done, he needs to do some major work helping folks repair their broken lives and stop deceiving themselves...until one of them reveals to Mike that he is also living a broken life of self-deception...

It got a little frustrating reading about a young adolescent acting more mature and reasonable than the adults surrounding him, but I get the fact that the target audience for this book is someone around Mike's age.  It's very easy reading, and I enjoyed seeing things from the perspective of this kid...I certainly wasn't anywhere nearly as rationale or lucid when I was that age.  And there are some good lessons to be learned from his experiences: The Absolute Value of Mike is a worthwhile way to spend some reading time, regardless of your age...