How to Get Suspended and Influence People

by Adam Selzer

It all starts with an assignment. Leon's "gifted and talented" class has to make educational videos for the sixth and seventh graders. Leon originally chooses "sex ed" as his subject in the hopes of showing a flash of boob. But as time goes on, his project starts to mean something. He wants to tell the younger kids that puberty is tough, but what they're going through is normal.

After researching the avant-garde movement, Leon crafts his video in the style of La Dolce Pubert. It's deeply disturbing yet comforting.

But when the gifted program's director sees it, she suspends Leon—and he finds himself at the center of a townwide debate over censorship. Who gets to decide how far is too far?

Genres: Humor, Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Middle Grade, The United States Of America, School

192 pages, Hardcover

First published February 13, 2007

About the author

Adam Selzer blocked Goodreads on his computer for years but now he's on here, so let him have it. His first book was HOW TO GET SUSPENDED AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE (now available in a "Now With More Swearing") edition, his next one is PLAY ME BACKWARDS (for satanic young adults), and his best known is probably I KISSED A ZOMBIE AND I LIKED IT, a Twilight satire that was not marketed as a satire.

He also writes the SMART ALECK'S GUIDE series and has published a bunch of Chicago history/ghostlore books.

You can also find him under the name SJ Adams, the name he used for SPARKS: THE EPIC, COMPLETELY TRUE BLUE (ALMOST) HOLY QUEST OF DEBBIE, which won a Stonewall honor and made the YALSA popular paperback list.

Reviews

[Christina Getrost · Rating 3 out of 5]

8th grader Leon is in gifted classes, he's smart but a bit of a slacker. When his health class is assigned to make health topic videos to show to the 6th graders, however, he gets excited about making a sex education video for them. He's learning about avant garde art and decides to make a really avant garde video, with random photos of nude art and a jazzy soundtrack and a voiceover poem created by a friend of his. He's sure it will be like nothing those kids have ever seen before; it'll get their attention and help them know that everything they're going through is perfectly normal. However, when the conservative gifted ed teacher sees the video and hears the narration mention "whacking off", she becomes irate and forbids it from being shown to any students--and Leon is put into in-school suspension. His classmates rally on his behalf, and his health teacher gives him an A for creativity; a copy of the video gets spread around school so everyone who wants to see it gets to anyway. Interesting premise, and it was entertaining (there's a subplot about his inventor father, who hates Thomas Edison with a passion and can't ever invent anything practical), but it's not the best written book I've ever read.

[Gwen the Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leon is one of the kids in the gifted pool of his junior high. While he considers himself a metal-head to avoid being labeled nerd, Leon feels like he comes from pretty pathetic stock. His dad loves to come up with things that have already been invented and his mom’s hobby is to cook really gross food from other eras, like the 1950’s. At least the other kids in the gifted pool are pretty cool, rebellious kids. When Leon’s teacher assigns a project to make new films for the younger grades, Leon chooses to make a sex-ed film. He figures that there are lots of things kids need to know that never get mentioned in the old films and he sets out to make the best, most memorable sex-ed film he can. To get around the censors, Leon decides he will use nudes from famous paintings; no one can object to great art, right? Wrong. Before Leon’s film is even finished, he gets in big trouble. Will his new infamy land him in the doghouse or make him really popular? This hilarious look at censorship is engaging and depicts a realistic school social class system.

[Jordan Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book might be great for an actual middle schooler, but I find it downright painful. The level of cliche social structures, biases, and worries is gag-inducing. I think the narrator's home life is supposed to be funny, but I just find it terribly cringy.

[Tiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Adam writes for young people. His charisma and enthusiasm really does draw adventurous teenagers to all of his books. Marvelous!!

[Kellyanne]

Nope. Just nope. Abandoned.

I see this was written in 2007. There are “jokes” that really haven’t aged well at all.

[Julie Decker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leon's a gifted kid and has a few odd friends who think on his level, but he's also a middle-school boy and often thinks like one. For an assignment, he creates an educational film and decides his subject will be a no-holds-barred sex education film--inspired by the avant-garde style he's picked up an admiration for through love interest Anna. However, when his frank references to masturbation and less clinical representations of sexuality are NOT well received by Mrs. Smollet, the school's conservative grump, Leon is faced with suspension. The ensuing clash between the supposed voice of decency and the eager voices against censorship catches Leon in the middle, handing him the reins of a campaign he did not exactly mean to start. What will become of his educational future?

Leon and his friends are funny--in fact, sometimes a bit too clever with their dialogue--and some of their discussions and motivations are 100% spot-on while others felt a little too constructed for me (mostly because they were so witty, lending the dialogue tasting of can some of the time). The beginning was rough for me when Leon does so much talking to the audience about his middle name and his family, but that smooths out later on and feels more natural. I liked Leon's balance between actually caring about his material and basically just wanting to push the envelope; the author did a really good job capturing the essence of gifted-kid goofiness.

[Brandon Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leon Harris: Here's a very real young guy who, through his junior high hi-jinks is searching - albeit fumbling - for meaning, trying to express the beliefs he's slowly realizing he has.

The overall voice is more authenitc in a true way, rather than just sassy to be sassy, like so many young adult novels are currently.

The assignment: each of the students in "the giften pool" are to make an educational video to be shown to the younger students. Drawing on memories of the guilt that come with raging and confusing hormones that result from all the ordinary secrets the adults around him cling to, from no one ever really just telling him the basics, from the worry that the sexual feelings a guy has that he worries are weird because he doesn't know every guy has 'em - young Leon decides to take those answers he had to figure out the hard way and cram them in a sex ed. film - but to make it really artsy and "avant-garde" because then you can say its art and people aren't supposed to be mad at you if it's art.

He's in for a crash-course in some of our society's pitfalls.

I heartily recomend this one. I was reminded of the fumbling, innocent, emerging way of thinking and figuring things out on your own that I haven't thought like in years. Because I had to fucking go and grow up.

[Meagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This teen novel will likely appeal to librarian-types because of its focus on information creation and intellectual freedom issues. That's right up our alley! For non-librarian types, the story is about a middle schooler who gets an assignment to create a health video for sixth and seventh graders. He, like any other normal teen boy, chooses sex ed in case there's any chance of filming some nudity. In the end his video comes to mean more to him, especially in light of the fact that it gets him suspended.

Lots of great intellectual freedom issues here, and the best part is that the author doesn't bother to hit you over the head with them. It's all laid out in a story where a teen is really just interested in bucking the system and ruffling some feathers, with a core of actually being offended by the censorship. (There's an interesting scene where a teacher claims that it's not censorship because the school has the right to determine what's appropriate, but I'm pretty sure it was censorship. The school does act in loco parentis, but it's not like the kid made anything all that salacious. It wasn't pornography. An interesting debate...) I'm not sure if it's got wide teen appeal, but it's a fast read at 183 pages which could make it a popular choice for assignments...

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewed by Jeremey for TeensReadToo.com

Eighth-grader Leon has a project in his class for gifted and talented students. Each student must make his or her own educational video to show the lower classmen. What subject do you think a hormonal teenager will choose? Of course, sex education.

Despite his wanting to see pictures of naked people, Leon wants to show the kids that puberty is normal. Hair grows, things change, you have certain urges, and everything's like a big explosion. With his friend, Anna, Leon creates an avant-garde sex ed. video, which is informative, but kind of weird.

Before showing it to the lower classmen, Leon first debuts it to his teacher, Mrs. Smollet, who finds it immoral and disgusting. Naturally, she goes to the principal, who suspends Leon. During his suspension, the townspeople debate over Leon's sex education video. Is it too graphic for sixth and seventh graders? After this huge debate will Leon be allowed to show his video and come back to school, or be expelled forever?

Adam Selzer creates a funny and enjoyable book. The characters are well-written and defined. You'll enjoy this book and laugh throughout; this is a book you don't want to miss!

[Swankivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought and read this 'cause my friend got engaged to the author and I wanted to read something he wrote. I thought it was very readable and fun young adult book--my only criticism is that (like a lot of kids' books) the characters' dialogue was often more witty and well-constructed than you'd expect even adults' dialogue to be (which I found difficult to swallow despite the fact that they were supposed to be "gifted pool" kids--I was in the gifted program and we weren't quite that well-spoken I'm afraid), and sometimes I felt like the narration was aware that there was an audience reading (like, it "performs" for you sometimes). That said, I thought Leon's situation was amusing and funny and that Adam nailed the "middle-school boy" character very well with all its embarrassments, eagerness to be accepted as well as to appall others, and fun-loving yet "hoodlum-ish" qualities. And he had the balls to include concepts and phrases and words most books for that age group are afraid to cover--much like the protagonist handles taboo subjects and deals with it in his own way when it gets him in trouble. I definitely found it easy to read and look forward to picking up another one of his books.

[TheSaint · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off, this book is going straight to the middle school. If the librarian there will take it. It was a mistake to buy it for a high school population.
Second. I didn't warm to the first person narrator. Yes he's a gifted kid with gifted friends. The author goes to great lengths to make sure we know that, but still, the kid, the kid's language just didn't ring true for me. But then, I'm not around 8th graders all day, either.
Third, the suspension part (and the real story) doesn't start till the final quarter of the book. MS kids might read through to it, though, because the plot centers around a topic -- sex -- that is near and dear to adolescents' hearts.
Mr. Selzer has a point about censorship and creativity and the role schools play in the fostering of the former and the quashing of the latter. Methinks there's something of the autobiographical going on here.

[Aidan Ceszynski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you know what avant-garde is? If not, read this book. If you do, read this book. If you are breathing right now, read this book. This is such a good book about middle schoolers that I think everyone should read it. Pretty much, a eigth grader from the gifted pool (or as he calls it, the smartasses) tries to make a avant garde movie about sex education caleed La Dolce Pubert. It involves artistic nudity, kissing, a CPR dummy, a explosion and a flash of boob. But the teacher Ms. Smollet won't allow it. Will La Dolce Pubert be shown to disturb and delight kids? Will his dad invent matches that activate when you snap? Will he ever kiss his friend Anna? Or will the entire town get involved in a debate about censorship? Better read to find out!

[Isaiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book caught me by the title and it was very good. It's about how a boy named Leon makes a video about puberty for his advanced class assignment in middle school. when it's finished, he ends up getting suspended and the movie gets banned from his entire town. but his fellow classmates won't take that, they organize protest and by the end of the semester everyone has an "illegal" copy of his movie. I liked the book because of its sarcasm and how the character's would talk the way actual teenagers talk.

[Jonathan Garske · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book "How to Get Suspended and Influence People". As as middle school student i could strongly relate to the main character Leon and his problems. The story is about Leon turning a regular school project into a creative work of art. Leon stands up against authority for what he believes in. The story makes you think just because someone is authority to you does that mean that they are always right and shouldn't be challenged. I would recommend this book for 7th, 8th, or 9th graders who are comfortable reading about sexual content.

[Diamond Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a new Library Associate and I was looking within our collection for interesting books for our Young Adults to read. I actually built a relationship with a Young Adult at my Library who told me that she was suspended and she wasn't doing too well in her classes. She is a very witty and (I can sense), gifted young lady. The title caught me first, but by reading the book's summary I think she would be able to relate and become inspired. I am excited to get her feedback on the book, and interested to see how much she can (or can not) relate. I will keep you all updated

[The Library Lady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny--kids will enjoy it--but I found it a little contrived and the adult characters a little cardboardy. Still, lots of fun and lots for kids to talk about.

Warning school librarians, this includes another male anatomical word other than "scrotum", and some talk about "whacking off". But then, the main character is making an avant garde sex education film to show younger students at this middle school--what would you expect?

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid first novel (a bit nostalgic for the author's own junior high days, but not as badly as other first YA novels) about Leon Noside Harris and his quest to irritate his teacher and offer art the world needs with a video in the style of Fellini explaining "it's all normal, you're okay": La Dolce Pubert. Terrible cover, good book.

[Laurie]

In some ways this is rather like a middle-school version of Rats Saw God (though it is not as good as RSG, one of my very favorite YA novels), and it made me laugh out loud, despite suffering from the quirky character (in this case, quirky parents: Dad is an inventor who hates Edison) curse.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book to determine if I would recommend it for my teen. It was so burying, I couldn't wait for this story to be over. I kept waiting for something -anything- of substance to pull me in, but was sorely disappointed.

[erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

[http://eringoblog.net/books/?p=96]

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious

[Trina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, but totally inappropriate to bring in for my eighth graders due to a little too much discussion about puberty.

[Julius]

Okay.

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teen guys will read this book.

[Erin]

Challenged in 2009, Idaho.

[Sarah W · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe in a few years!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and enjoyable. The kind of YA book I would've been happy to read when I was in middle school. Too bad it didn't come out until the year I graduated.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

it started out rather good but i just got really bored with it.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Plot was weak. Almost got started going somewhere then fizzled.

[Trevorwright118 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always like Adams book .I always wanted to read it .from I read pirates of the retail wasteland. I knew this would be another fun and great story