Review: The Universe of Fair by Leslie Bulion

October 23, 2012

What could be better than a day off from school to attend a fair with games and rides and heaps of your favorite foods? For nearly 12-year-old Miller it’s the chance to explore with his best friend without parental supervision. To that end he’s spent the last few weeks being extra helpful and responsible in the hopes that his parents will allow him free reign at this year’s fair.

But fate conspires against him from all angles.

He serves up his father’s prize pie entry as a snack to his friend, his 6-year-old sister and her friends by accident. He was doing his best to be responsible. Then he learns his mother has to work late, and worse yet, she has to work on Fair Day and expects him to be chaperoned by the mother of one of his sister’s friends. Miller frets he’ll be the laughing-stock of his classmates and he’ll never live it down.

Fair Day dawns and things continue to speed downhill like an out of control train.

Miller ends up on his own, sort of, but he has more responsibility than he knows what to do with.

A masterly crafted tale that captures all the nuance and concerns of a pre-teen boy who wants nothing more than a little bit of well-earned freedom. The reader is drawn into the story and, like the proverbial train wreck, can’t look away until the very satisfying end.