GUY WIRE

Laughs won out over tears in Guy Strang’s previous appearances (My Guy,2001; Guy Time, 2000, etc.), but not this time. Sitting in the hospital, waiting to hear whether his bosom buddy Buzz is going to live or die after being hit by a car, Guy flashes back to their friendship’s rocky start, years ago in second grade. Though Weeks again plays expertly upon the continuing theme of Guy’s struggle to be “normal” despite hilariously wacky parents—his well-meaning but feckless mother takes a star turn here, inspiring Buzz’s nickname with some disastrous barbering, serving chocolate/liver pâté as an appetizer, and trying to costume the children playing bushes for the class play in St. Patrick’s Day boxer shorts (“ ‘Clover is vegetation just like shrubs are’ ”)—Guy’s anguish and guilt give the comedy a tinny feel. Even with generous helpings of realistically juvenile dialogue (“ ‘You look like green boogers’ ”), the warm glow of strangers becoming best friends, and the eventual news that Buzz is going to make it, readers’ spirits are more likely to be weighted down than buoyed by this tearful episode. (Fiction. 10-12)