NIGHTMARE AT THE BOOK FAIR

A determined nonreader suffers toxic exposure to genre fiction when a bookcase falls on his head. Reluctantly agreeing to help set up a display in his school’s media center, Trip Dinkleman blacks out beneath a shower of volumes—and wakes up (in a new chapter titled “Horror”) outside an eerie haunted house. About to have his face cut off at the command of leering Professor Psycho, Trip suddenly finds himself in “Sports Fiction,” carrying the ball in the Super Bowl. So it goes, each new chapter starting with the previous one’s last line, through Adventure, Humor, Mystery and the rest of the roster. After a riotously over-the-top Fantasy quest (“I am Hockaloogie, …a wise and mystical sage who occasionally speaks in old English and refuses to give away plot details for his own mysterious reasons”) and a horrifying stint as a female in Fiction for Girls, Trip comes to and discovers that his negative attitude toward reading has been thoroughly spoiled. Gutman has way too much fun here, and reading-assignment-weary young readers will, too. (Fantasy and everything else. 10-12)