I read the book When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt. The copyright date is 2001, it's genre is realistic fiction and the general subject matter is about the "World's Heaviest Boy" and how he cam to a small texan town during the vietnam war and how the kids there changed his views on life. Toby, a 13 year-old and his best friend Cal both live in a small town, becuase of this everybody ALWAYS knows whats going on. One day a trailer pulls up in an empty parking lot with a sign that reads " World's Heaviest Boy'' of course, everybody is curious. The boys and Zach, the boy in the trailer, become good friends and do alot of cool stuff together The overall theme of the book is apperences can be decieving.

  The story is told from Toby's point of view. Tony and Cal go to see the worl'd heaviest boy. Once they enter the trailer they realize that Zach is just a normal kid.  Just a bit bigger. With the help of Cal's older sister they go off to show Zach how much cool stuff the world can offer. The intended audience is for both boys and girls from the ages of 12 - 15. The genre is probaly historical fiction because ot didn't really happen and the setting is in the 60's. The authors style is actually really intesting, he mixes several different plotlines that don' seem to realate and then in the end she connects them all with a common theme.

  The book affected me because it showed that even if a person is considerd "abnormal" by society, they can still have feelings. My views were never really changed by the book, they were just enforced. I will probaly view the world in a differnt light after reading this. The story that this book involved was actually very origanal,  I can't really realate it to past books.

  The book was very good, it's a short read so it would'nt take very long. I would reccomend this to a person who likes to read shorter books that still have an intresting and suspensful plot line.


Lauren Schulke
12/18/13
RATING 4.5/5