The Reinvention of Edison Thomas

This must be my summer to read books about middle school students who have a hard time fitting in. Edison Thomas is a young boy who is very gifted when it comes to creating machines but very awkward when it comes to social skills. It starts off with Edison at the science fair, which he doesn't win. However he soon ends up with more problems. His best friend from kindergarten may not actually be a friend, the crossing guard is fired and students may be hit by cars that don't stop at the stop sign, and he ends up getting in trouble at school for things he doesn't understand. However, along the way he meets some potential friends in Justin, who beat him at the science fair, and Terry who loves science fiction movies. Together they struggle through the pitfalls of middle school and end up supporting Eddy as he faces down bullies and creates new machines.

One of my favorite parts of the book are how we see what Eddy is thinking as his mind makes unusual connections. For example another student Kip invites Eddy to his bands jam session. "Eddy thought of oranges (Citrus sinensis) marmalade and strawberry (Fragaria ananassa) preserves. He was getting hungry. 'Eddy?' 'Yes.' 'Would you like to try some jamming with us sometime?' Now Eddy thought of jamming radio signals."

Throughout the book are various facts from the Random Access Memories of Edison Thomas (such as the original name for the search engine Google was BackRub) which are fun and interesting for science geeks. In the appendix is a list of not-so-random-numbers including 1.7 kg the average weight of an adult male duck-billed platypus. If you read carefully you will find that all of these numbers (even that one) tie in to something mentioned in the story.

All in all a fun book about trying to fit in at middle school, which at some level we can all relate to.