Alvin Ho: Allergic to girls, school, and other scary things by Lenore Look, illustrated by LeUyen Pham

I have this in my beginning chapters section, although it's not truly a beginning chapter. I originally weeded this and the companion series, Ruby Lu, due to low circulation. However, I have a lot of teachers request/assign this title so I purchased a couple copies of the first book for them.

Told in a stream-of-consciousness style, with humorous black-and-white illustrations, it's a quirky mix of the classic Ramona and the more contemporary Wimpy Kid. At home, Alvin is loud and exuberant, but at school he just can't make a sound. This first book follows him through his first semester in second grade. Most of the incidents in the book stem from his initial outrage and frustration - when seats are assigned he can't speak and so his friend and neighbor Flea (Sophie), a GIRL, assumes he will want to sit next to her. He goes through a lot of trial and turmoil trying to get the boys to play with him and make friends with them, from taking his father's favorite vintage toy (and breaking it) to being mean and dismissive to Flea. Eventually, he realizes that Flea is a better friend than the boys he's been hanging around and he accepts her friendship.

There are thoughtful discussions with his father about being a gentleman, lots of interpolations about American history, specifically around the Revolutionary war, and a stomach-turning or hilarious (depending on how you feel about it) chapter on the whole class getting chicken pox. There's also integration of Alvin's heritage of being Chinese-American into the story and his school appears to be somewhat economically and racially diverse.

Some things about the book felt very outdated; It was originally published in 2008, but the chickenpox vaccine became available in 1995 in the US and by 2005 was one of the required vaccines for school. So while it's possible that Alvin and his classmates didn't get the vaccine as infants, it's odd that not a single person in his class was vaccinated. I had mixed feelings about the "boys vs. girls" thing as well. On the one hand, I still see a lot of teachers dividing their classes by boys and girls and, especially younger kids, still have issues with socializing with the opposite gender. On the other hand, a lot of kids don't care about this anymore and many parents actively encourage them to have a wide variety of friends. I don't know if this will reinforce stereotypes or encourage kids to break them down. Alvin, who visits the originator of the chicken pox, Jules, says he doesn't know whether they are a boy or a girl because they play with both genders.

Verdict: I can see why teachers like this and kids would find it funny; I can also see some things about it that feel outdated and I'm not surprised kids lost interest in it on their own. It really only circulates for the school assignments, but it's available in paperback and I don't think it's a problem to keep a few copies on the shelf. Because of Alvin's age and the length and complexity of the book, this is one of those titles that is a fit for younger readers who read at a high level and are very fluent, so you might consider this if you have a large population of those readers.

ISBN: 9780375849305; This edition published 2009 by Yearling; Purchased two copies for the library in 2022