Anthony Bonano (nicknamed ‘Antsy’) was just a normal eighth-grader living in Brooklyn. Until he meets Calvin Schwa (nicknamed ‘The Schwa’) who is invisible. Well, not exactly invisible, because you can still see him if you concentrate. But he’s just really, really unnoticeable. I guess you could call him invisible-ish. Everybody has weird stories about why he is the way he is, and what happened to his mother. People started paying The Schwa to do dares that have to do with his “invisiblishness,” and Antsy would be his manager. Things seem to be going okay… until someone dares him to sneak into the scary Old Man Crawley’s apartment and bring back a dog bowl from there. They get caught and have to walk Crawley’s huge dogs for 12 weeks. When Antsy asks The Schwa what happened to his mom, Schwa gets really uncomfortable and just tells Antsy that his mom dissapeared when he was five. When Crawley’s handicapped granddaughter named Lexie comes to town, Crawley asked Antsy to be her personal escort. Even though they realized that Lexie’s grandfather had set them up, Schwa becomes jealous of Antsy and Lexie’s relationship. So he once throws a fit and tells Antsy that he’s tired of being “invisible”and that he doesn’t want to be forgotten and end up like his mother. When he plans something big to get himself noticed, that horribly doesn’t work. But a butcher in a supermarket knew the story about The Schwa’s mother that would change his life forever… The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman is a hilarious story will make you laugh out loud! It would definitely appeal to both boys and girls. It does have some mild language, but it’s not really that bad. It is told in the first person by Antsy and is the absolute kind of offbeat story that I love, and I know that you will love too when you read it.

Emily N.