The Nose from Jupiter

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

If Alan Dingwall was a marine mammal, he would be a protected species.
Unfortunately, he is human and therefore only a dead kid walking. Alan
is number one on the official hit list of The Cougars. The Cougars are
the toughest gang of Grade 7 kids at Alan’s junior high school and
they desperately want to beat up him because they think he is not afraid
of them. In fact, Alan is terrified. But there is an alien, called
Norbert, squatting in Alan’s nose. Norbert is a visitor from Jupiter
who is not afraid of the Cougars and makes very brave noises from the
safety of Alan’s nose. Although these noises are highly amusing to
Alan’s classmates, they infuriate the bullies, and Alan is wondering
whether having a nose from Jupiter is worth the grief.

Richard Scrimger knows how to wring every possible laugh from this
absolutely outrageous premise, and still leave room for a little
middle-school romance and some unmaudlin social commentary. His
intelligent writing will grab and hold young readers because it is real
and silly at the same time; bullies are a fact of life, Norberts up the
nose are not. Readers can empathize with Alan’s terror even while
enjoying Norbert’s manic booger-man routine. Highly recommended.