THE COMPUTER THAT SAID STEAL ME

by Elizabeth Levy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 1983

An uncompromising 1980s story of a bright, no-trouble kid whose friends have lots more money. Sixth-grader Adam, recently moved from San Francisco, likes Buffalo better (less-flaky kids, more living space); he has a great, self-elected best friend in fellow-chess-freak Tracy, and a good (if touchy) buddy in Jesse; together, the three are deep into Dungeons and Dragons. What bothers Adam is that his parents are on the staff at select St. Luke's, so he has a scholarship--and Tracy's and Jesse's families are rich. Not that they're snobby: rather, ""it didn't seem fair that [they] could have anything that they wanted""--like a chess computer, when ""he was the best player of the three."" So begins Adam's elaborate, obsessive scheme to steal a $400 talking computer from a nearby electronics store--which (in a string of grimly comic scenes) takes him over, turns him sour and snappish, causes him to fight with Tracy, brings him sneers at his St. Luke's blazer . . . and, naturally, backfires: the computer captured, he's miserable not only about being a thief, but about lying to account for his funk, blaming it on nuclear-holocaust blues. As part of local anti-nuke activism, Tracy and Jesse and other sixth-graders--and Adam, when he's not otherwise preoccupied--have devised a nuclear-blast Dungeons and Dragons game: ghastly, and true-to-statistical-probability. The upshot is of less moment. Adam, consumed with the need to confess, tells Tracy and Jesse; despite their qualms, he returns the computer to the store (the saleswoman, who once thought him terrific, decides he's crazy); he then has to tell-all to his parents too--and, with time, try to regain their trust. Brisk, immediate, compelling--with the extra edge of awfulness that comes from feeling it could happen to you.

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Four Winds

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION