Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood by Gordon Korman

Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood by Gordon Korman is a humorous young adult novel from this Canadian author. Yes this is nostalgia for me. I first read this probably in grade 5 or 6. I wanted to see how this would hold up for someone in their mid-twenties. I was actually pleasantly surprised there are still several laugh out loud funny moments.

The plot is that there is a movie production taking place at the school. Our main characters originally decide the child star must be taken down a peg but eventually combine with him to show him what teenage life is supposed to be about.

It's probably a function of the YA aspect of the book but the plot is crammed into slightly less than 50,000 words. There's a lot here there are at least three possible events that could have been the major crisis of the book. They are the dance with the girl school, the big hockey game or the wilderness survival trip. I wasn't hoping for pages of teenage angst but if the book had been slightly longer or had slightly less material I think it may have worked better. That being said the characters even though they are mainly stock are pretty funny even to this jaded twentysomething. I'll probably be picking up the other books in the series over time. This can be a nice break from more of the gritty stuff I usually read.

Recommended if you need a chuckle.

Is available through Abebooks.