Product Description

For sixteen-year-old Ben Bancroft — a kid with cerebral palsy, no parents, and an overprotective grandmother — the closest thing to happiness is hunkering alone in the back of the Rialto Theatre and watching Bride of Frankenstein for the umpteenth time. The last person he wants to run into is drugged-up Colleen Minou, resplendent in ripped tights, neon miniskirt, and an impressive array of tattoos. But when Colleen climbs into the seat beside him and rests a woozy head on his shoulder, Ben has that unmistakable feeling that his life is about to change. With unsparing humor and a keen flair for dialogue, Ron Koertge captures the rare repartee between two lonely teenagers on opposite sides of the social divide. His smart, self-deprecating protagonist learns that kindred spirits may be found for the looking — and that the resolve to follow your passion can be strengthened by something as simple as a human touch.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #238969 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-05
• Released on: 2004-01-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Amazon.com Review
Colleen Minou is a hard-core stoner, a girl whose motto is, "I'll get high and do anything." Ben Bancroft is a movie-addicted preppie who suffers from cerebral palsy, "the resident spaz, invisible as the sign that says NO RUNNING, the one no one pays attention to." Together, they form the most unlikely couple since Dharma and Greg. He's Brooks Brothers, she's Salvation Army. He's never even smoked a cigarette, she's got 20 different chemicals running through her veins. But when these two lonely teens meet one night at Ben's favorite hang, the Rialto (a classic film theatre that "smells like butter from the Paleozoic"), sparks fly. At least for Ben they do. Maybe it's because Colleen's the first girl to ever really notice him, to have the nerve to tease him about his disability instead of pretend it's not there. For once, Ben is actually more interested in his real life than a movie. Colleen takes him clubbing, lights his first joint, even challenges him to direct his own movie. But when Ben, in turn, dares her to stay straight, Colleen admits that, despite his devotion, she still needs the drugs to "smooth out the edges." Is Ben capable of convincing her otherwise? If not, how will he ever be cured of his Colleen addiction?

Author of the acclaimed Brimstone Journals, Ron Koertge's wry depiction of this car wreck of a relationship is sharply observed and wholly original. Teen readers will have a tough time turning the last page of this oddly endearing, screwball love story. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

From Publishers Weekly
erhaps not since Harold and Maude has there been such a likable unlikely romance. "Since I've been pretty much treading water all day, the marquee of the Rialto Theatre looks like the prow of a ship coming to save me," begins narrator Ben Bancroft, a 16-year-old who has cerebral palsy. Koertge's (The Brimstone Journals) opening scene sets in motion the novel's key elements: Ben's black humor and his love for movies, both of which keep him afloat, and his chance face-to-face meeting there with Colleen Minou, a drug addict (who looks like Helena Bonham Carter "in Fight Club... pretty in an edgy, ruined way"). After Ben meets a new neighbor who happens to have made a short documentary for a film class (the novel, after all, is set in Los Angeles), he starts one of his own, High School Confidential. Thanks to Ben's nc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 9 & Up--Sixteen-year-old Ben Bancroft has cerebral palsy, no parents, an overprotective grandmother, and a pretty sorry life as far as he's concerned. He finds solace sitting alone in the back of the Rialto Theatre, watching old horror movies. One day, when he's watching Bride of Frankenstein for the umpteenth time, Colleen Minou, a notorious basket case and druggie at Ben's high school, plops down in the seat next to him and proceeds to place her woozy head on his shoulder. Thus begins the uneasy friendship between the odd pair. Ben's grandmother is horrified by this foulmouthed, thoroughly tattooed flake who dresses in miniskirts and tights, but he is too taken with her to care. The friendship between Ben and Colleen evolves and eventually blossoms into romance and then a sexual relationship. Both teens are desperately searching for self-acceptance, and they each make valiant attempts to help the other find it. The generous friendship of his neighbor and mentor also nudges Ben out of his shell and gives him a means of self-expression through filmmaking. Koertge displays his usual flair for creating believable characters, genuine dialogue, and some wonderfully humorous moments. Ben's apprehension and awkwardness with Colleen and her almost complete obliviousness to everything in the world around her rings true. Their need for a sense of belonging and their efforts to find it in one another are themes to which readers will certainly relate.
Edward Sullivan, White Pine School, TN
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Richie's Picks: STONER & SPAZ
Relatively early on in my career as a "children's" bookbuyer I had the great fortune to participate in a day-long workshop discussing "teen" literature. The experts from whom I was to learn that day were Michael Cart and Richard Jackson. Between them, they made several points that have stuck with me as I define and evaluate young adult literature. Among the words of wisdom that day were:

Adolescents create and re-create themselves on a daily basis as they search for their identity. Good teen literature frequently provides characters whose roles teen readers can try on vicariously as if they were cloaks. Good teen literature frequently poses more questions than it provides answers.

That day's presentations were the inspiration for my creating a separate young adult section--after a week of quoting the experts I was given the okay to purchase and shelve those books away from the kids' stuff, in the process becoming the "children's and young adult" buyer. This division, of course, is the rule rather than the exception in bookstores and libraries today.

STONER AND SPAZ, set in LA, is the latest, perfect example of what young adult fiction is all about.

In addition, STONER AND SPAZ is a book that pays homage to film the way SEEK does to radio.

Ben (Spaz) Bancroft, a teen "cinefile" whose aloofness is the result of his self-consciousness over his dragging an arm and a leg due to cerebral palsy, tells us the story of his entanglement with Colleen (Stoner) Minou, who is as engaging, witty, and tough as Mona Lisa Vito, Marisa Tomei's character in My Cousin Vinnie. Colleen's boyfriend, Ed, is studying to be a drug lord. Early on, as Ben waits to hand over the report on THE GREAT GATSBY for which Colleen has hit him up, he gives us a look at Ed in action:

"Waiting there I feel, I don't know anthropological, I guess. I just need a pair of binoculars and a field guide to watch Ed Dorn in his black jeans and black T-shirt make the rounds, moving from the gangstas in their huge pants through the Mexican tough guys and into the Asian kung-fu fighters. Each clique has a different handshake, and Ed knows them all. He knows which girl's hand to grab and rub over his shaved head, which brother to joke with, which guy's Pepsi to snatch and take a sip of, which one to lean into and whisper. Colleen walks a few steps behind. She wears knee-high silver boots and looks like someone from a different galaxy."

When Colleen catches up with Ben, he mentions to her:

"'I was watching Ed in action. He's like Louis the Fourteenth,' I said, 'moving through the gardens at Versailles dispensing favors.'"

"'Louis better watch his ass,' says Colleen. 'This is Ed's turf.'"

Ben has been raised by his grandmother, who dresses him in prep garb and who meets Colleen when she invites herself for a ride home in Grandma's Cadillac and then endears herself to Grandma by immediately puking out the window. Ben has never given Grandma a bit of trouble before. She cannot understand his growing involvement with Colleen:

"'What is it exactly that you see in her? Besides the narcotics, she's so profane and...' She thinks for a few seconds. "So badly decorated.'"

What Ben sees in Colleen is that she treats his condition so honestly and matter-of-factly. In turn, he makes her feel like a high school kid, which is in such contrast to the scary world of drugs, clubs, and thugs in which she's immersed. And while this is a uniquely descriptive and extremely fun story, it is no fairy tale. When it's over we're left heavy on the side of unanswered questions. I was also left with a profound sadness for having to end my relationship with two characters I came so quickly to like and care so much about--Stoner and Spaz. ...

Tough, funny, realistic...I could go on & on
This is a story about an unusual friendship between a lonely physically handicapped "spaz" whose grandmother makes him wear $70 Brooks Brothers shirts to school and a "stoner" party girl who'll "get high and do anything."

Ron Koertge knows how people -- especially kids -- talk and, for me, hearing his characters' voices is the best part of any Koertge book.

Ben (the "spaz" of the title, he is afflicted with cerebral palsy) is smart, funny, and charming, and when Colleen (the "stoner") tells him that half the girls in her rehab group want to be his girlfriend, I couldn't help but think, "If I were in high school, I'd wanna be his girlfriend too!"

Colleen is also smart -- a fact that shines through her druggy haze -- as well as tough and fascinating. It's easy to see why Ben is drawn to her.

I love the characterization of Ben's proper, uptight grandmother. She's prim without ever being a stereotype.

As Ben and Colleen become friends, they help each other to see themselves more clearly. Colleen says Ben's wasted, atrophied arm is not so bad. Ben says Colleen's "ice-cream habit" is hurting her more than she realizes.

And so Ben attempts to get to know more people at school, and Colleen checks into a rehab program. As they "stand up and fall down, stand up and fall down," as their friend Marcie says, which one of them will remain standing? Can their strange friendship survive?

Check out this fast read to find out.

Beyond stereotypes
Stoner & Spaz takes some surprising turns in a genre that too often relies on heavy-handed cliches to make a point. Teen drug literature often relies on stock characters (the abusive father, the defiant teen, the street kid, the clueless adult) and standard plot mechanisms (teen led astray by evil peers, teen tricked into trying drugs then swiftly becoming an addict) to drive home the point that drugs are bad. This book breaks through the stereotypes beginning with the narrator, Ben, a 16 year old boy with cerebral palsy who is remarkably intelligent, sensitive and self-aware, although something of a social misfit because of his self-consciousness about his condition. He is being raised by his wealthy, conservative, proper grandmother following the suicide of his father and the abandonment by his mother. The grandmother's character too is nicely drawn; although she is strict and conservative, she is also understanding and shrewd. In fact, this is perhaps the most refreshing thing about this book- it does not pit the adults against the teens. Decent, funny and cool adults share equal time with the younger characters and give more dimension than is usually found in this type of book.
The drugged out girl, Colleen (the "stoner") is on a fast track to disaster, flirting with bad company, marijuana, cocaine and cynicism. But she has a sense of humor and an unflinching way of dealing openly with Ben's condition that ultimately rescues him from the isolation with which he has surrounded himself. Although Colleen has a bad reputation because of her drug habits and her promiscuity, she brings a certain notoriety and cachet to Ben that he's never experienced- suddenly, the other kids are interested in him. An understanding adult opens a creative channel for him to explore this new world, and, in the course of this short novel, he learns much about himself, his peers and growing up.
The story is fast-paced, quick reading, and delivers the right message without being sanctimonious. It is very refreshing to have a main character with cerebral palsy who deals so openly with his condition and how it impacts his daily existence. The bits about everyday events such as getting dressed or climbing in a car are descriptive without being self-pitying or bathetic. Also surprising but refreshing is that Ben's brief marijuana experimentation does not lead to the usual drug addiction and death. The issues in this book are leavened with humor, compassion and hope- all of which are refreshing (and rare) in this genre.