Second Banana

Brenda Baltensperger is a playwright, a director of children’s
theatre, an editor of children’s fiction, and the author of Fractured
Fairy-tales.

Travis has a notorious reputation around the school for his
unpredictable and sometimes cruel practical jokes. But Ryan, who
doesn’t have any close friends, wants to be Travis’s buddy. Out of
lonely desperation, Ryan teams up with Travis and always backs him
up—that is, until Ryan himself becomes the victim of one of Travis’s
pranks. Ryan, deciding to try something new away from school, auditions
for the local community theatre’s production of Oliver. It is there
that he comes to see his own abilities and potential and to realize that
he doesn’t need to be a second banana to Travis or anybody else.

This story about why Ryan was prepared to do almost anything to be one
of the in-crowd is one that any boy can easily identify with and
understand. The book would make a good learning tool. Recommended.