Just released: Josh Lieb's '...Unspeakable Evil...' a book your 7th graders will be wild about

October 15, 8:23 PMChildren's Books ExaminerDiane Petryk Bloom

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Kids who complete high school usually agree --  7^th grade is the worst!  Imagine then being named Oliver and being in 7^th grade at the same time.

 And being from Omaha.

That’s our protagonist in I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I want to be Your Class President, just released today.

Author Josh Lieb, who produces The Daily Show, wrote the book with the underlying assumption that kids aren’t all about innocence or enthralled with fantasy. Their most overwhelming feeling is powerlessness, he told the Wall Street Journal. So, he invented a kid with power.  And that is a fantasy.

Especially for the typical insecure, awkward, socially inept, put-upon 7^th grader.

 Oliver is all that, but also the third richest person in the world. He owns tobacco companies, borax mines, banana plantations, TV networks, and investment banks. He’s going to use his fortune in a campaign for class president. Basically because his father thinks he could never win.

 You have to like heavy snot-ass kid sarcasm, but that’s 7^th grade.

 The book starts out when Oliver is in “Mr. Moorhead's English class as he prattles on about Fahrenheit 451.”

 After lengthy discourse on how Mr. Moorhead fails in his attempts to be cool, in manners and dress, Oliver takes on the book and the inevitable smart girl who sits in the front row. In this case, Pammy Quattlebaum. Mr. Moorhead begins:

 

 "The book depicts a world turned upside down." (Pammy nods.) "A world where firemen don't put out fires—they set them." (Pammy nods again, more emphatically.) "A world where the most dangerous weapon you can own"—here he holds up his copy of Fahrenheit 451—is a book." (Pammy nods so hard I can hear her tiny brain rattle, like a popcorn kernel in a jelly jar.)

 Moorhead, simulating deep thought, runs his fingers through the pubic growth that decorates his scalp. "What do you think? Are books dangerous? Are they… powerful?"

Pammy surges out of her seat, arm straining for the sky. She will apparently pee herself if she's not allowed to answer this question.

But Moorhead's eyes slide over to me. "What do you think, Oliver?"

Pammy shoots me a dirty look. Some of my other classmates giggle and don't bother trying to hide it. Randy Sparks, the Most Pathetic Boy in School, stops licking dried peanut butter off his glasses long enough to give me a sympathetic smile.

Moorhead grins like he's made a great joke. I am fairly certain I was only assigned to this class—which is far beyond my tested reading level—so he'd have someone to make fun of (besides Randy, of course).

I make him say my name again before I answer, "I don't know."

Moorhead's face crumples with disappointment, but his eyes shine with satisfaction. "Oliver. Didn't you do the reading?"

I shake my head sadly. Moorhead sighs. He looks like he wants to cry for me. Or burst out laughing. It's like his brain can't decide.

Actually, I read the book when I was two. And even then I knew it was regurgitated bird pap, fit only for morons and seventh graders. In case you're lucky enough to have escaped it, Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that is about how amazing books are and how wonderful the people who write books are. Writers love writing books like this, and for some reason, we let them get away with it. It's like someone producing a TV show called TV Shows Are the Best and the People Who Make Them are Geniuses. (2)

In Fahrenheit 451, books are illegal (because they're so powerful) and a fireman's job is to burn all the books he can find in big bonfires. This is supposed to blow your freaking mind. (3)

Moorhead walks back to my lonely little desk and puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. "It's too bad you skipped it, big guy. Because it happens to be one of the best books written in the past century."

His furry fingers rest on my shoulder like caterpillars. I decide not to bite them. One of the best books of the century? Fahrenheit 451 doesn't rank as one of the best birdcage liners of the century.

And besides—even if it were "one of the best books" … is that anything to brag about? Wouldn't it look kind of drab and shabby when compared to the book that's the actual best?

It doesn't pay to be good at something unless you are the absolute best at it. Otherwise, you'll eventually go up against someone who can beat you. That is why I do not try to play soccer, sing in the school chorus, or dance, even though I am moderately talented at all of these things. I concentrate on what I am good at: being a genius.

I am the greatest genius in the universe. I am the greatest genius in the history of the universe. Plus, I am unceasingly, unreservedly, unspeakably evil. Making me the most powerful force for evil ever created.

And poor Mr. Moorhead thinks I'm the dumbest boy in his English class.

 

The bell rings. Moorhead gives me one last pitying glance, then strolls back to the board. "Read the next chapter for tomorrow, people. And remember—nominations for student council have to be submitted at your next homeroom." He smiles at Jack Chapman, who lowers his handsome head modestly and runs a bashful hand through his soft and kinky hair. Jack exits with the throng, enduring much backslapping and people yelling, "You got my vote, Jack." I pretend to fumble with my books so I can see what happens next.

School Library Journal said Lieb “perfectly captures the wise guy sarcasm and trash mouth of a 7^th grade evil genius.”  Well, since there probably are no 7^th grade evil geniuses, how’s that again?   Sarcasm and trash-mouth, yes.  We don’t know what an evil genius would say.  Perhaps he’d be smarter.

Kirkus called it similar to Artemis Fowl, withoutthe fairy underworld.  Doubtful. Fowl's genius is more sophisticated.  This book is for kids too know-it-all to be reading much right now. And adults who remember those days.

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