The Sixth Grade Nickname Game

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

In Jeff Greenbaum and Wiley Adamson, Korman has created a likable pair
of characters in the Bruno and Boots mold. Best friends since birth, the
two are sixth-graders at Pennsylvania’s Old Orchard Public School,
a.k.a. OOPS, where they have a reputation for tagging people with
nicknames. Another school year brings two newcomers: 6 ft., 5 in., 280
lb. Mr. Hughes, the assistant coach of the high-school football team,
who becomes their teacher; and an attractive redhead, Cassandra Levy.
While Mr. Hughes is quickly branded “Mr. Huge,” the friends, unable
to think of anything better than “Carrot-top” for Cassandra,
postpone nicknaming her. When Charles “Snoopy” Rossi complains about
his pejorative sobriquet, Jeff and Wiley argue that nicknames won’t
“stick” if they don’t “fit.” To prove their point, they attach
the unlikely moniker “Iceman” to Mike Smith, “the blandest student
in the history” of OOPS.

Three plot threads run through the novel, two of them merging at the
end. Because Mr. Huge operates his classroom like a football team, his
unorthodox methods so disrupt the school that he will lose his job
unless 6B performs well on the State Reading Assessment. The students
like Mr. Huge and secretly begin a program of free reading to improve
their skills. In a separate storyline, Jeff and Wiley’s 11-year
friendship becomes strained when they compete to become Cassandra’s
date at the Sadie Hawkins dance. Ironically, their friendship survives
because of their Frankenstein’s monster, a.k.a. Iceman. A fun, fast
read! Highly recommended.