I just finished reading Alvin Ho (book 1) by Lenore Look. It is listed as a Young Readers Award nominee for 2012, so I decided to give it a read. After doing so, I was left unimpressed. The story is about a 2nd grader, Alvin Ho, who is quirky. He doesn't talk at school out of some sort of fear, and he tends to be rather literal or cautious in his actions.I have a few qualms with the story. The first is that it doesn't really have much direction. Alvin matures a little towards the end of the story, finally making a friend (something he lacked throughout the entire story). But it ends up being a myriad of vignettes chronicling Alvin's day in and day out. Beyond that, Alvin's oddities are many leaving him a tad overwhelming as a character. While many of his oddities fit for someone in elementary school, I've rarely seen all of them wrapped into one with kiddos.
Long and short of it: the book will make it into my library, and is much like Judy Moody except better. Some of my kids that struggle getting into books will enjoy this as it doesn't require intense amounts of focus to stay with the storyline.
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