laugh

__ Laugh Till You Cry  __ By: Joan Lowery Nixon Thirteen years old and a budding comedian, Cody has little to laugh about after he and his mother move from California to Texas to help his sick grandmother, and he finds himself framed by his jealous cousin for calling in bomb threats to their school.

Grade 4-7 - Cody, 13, and his mother have temporarily moved to Texas to care for Cody's ailing grandmother. As the story opens, he is running from class bullies, one of whom is his cousin. He runs straight into a police officer, an aspiring comedian, who intervenes. A friendship develops between them, and Officer Ramsey pays Cody to write jokes for his stand-up routine. When a bomb threat is phoned in at school, Cody is the prime suspect, and he and Officer Ramsey are determined to find the real culprit. A subplot involves an assignment on //Hamlet//, which adds interest and results in an unusual oral report from the teen. While the characters aren't fully developed, the pacing of the story, Cody's humorous side, and the book's length make this mystery ideal for reluctant readers. //- Linda Zeilstra Sawyer, Skokie Public Library, IL//
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