Go Big or Go Home - by Will Hobbs

A meteorite rips through your roof and burns a hole through your bed.  Luckily you were on the roof at the time, and didn't have your head disintegrated by this rocky visitor from Mars.  What do you do next?  Why not have some wild mountain bike adventures with your cousin, explore some huge caves in the wilderness, wrestle with your evil neighbor's killer dog, visit the cute girl at the local coffee shop, and watch toilets get launched hundreds of yards on a giant trebuchet?  (A trebuchet is a type of catapult, dude.)

This is my first Will Hobbs book, though I own a few and have tried to get students to read them over the years.  It is so hard to convince a student to read a book you haven't read yourself!  I was impressed by the amount of action in the book, and there was a lot of good dialogue that sounded the way teens would really talk.  You get a feeling for what the characters are thinking, but don't really get to know any of them that well.  It was good writing, but is not destined to become a classic.  I'll have to read more of this guy's books, but I can tell he's no Gary Paulsen.  More of a Dan Gutman, if you know what I mean.  That's not a bad thing, but it's not the highest compliment either.