Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time

Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time is a young adult novel by Lisa Yee, published by Scholastic in 2005. The story revolves around an Asian boy named Stanford, who has a passion for basketball, which is much greater than his passion for English class. Stanford receives an "F," and must take a summer class in order to play on the A-team next year. This forces him to forgo playing with his friends, and more importantly, he cannot attend the basketball camp he wished to attend.

His parents give him an 11-year-old prodigy as a tutor, and they loathe each other. Others things typical for the teenage years occur: he finds a love interest, he has to deal with family issues, and the primary issue of balancing school, hobbies, friends, and family.

This book would be great for captivating the interest of students interested in sports, attention-getting basketballs are scattered all over the covers. Also a female character in this book also appears in another of Yee's books, Millicent Min, Girl Genius. The teacher could perhaps give students the choice between reading Millicent or Stanford, and then have the class argue about the characters.

However, I found the content of this book to be quite juvenile for even 6th grade. Booger jokes aside, the chapters are short, the diction is reasonable, and the narrative voice is interesting. Another qualm I have about the book is its lack of touching on issues pertaining to Asian students. The book scooted right over social issues. This could be a two edge sword, the positive aspect being that it is more accessible to students of varying cultural backgrounds. There are some insights into Asian culture, but not as many as I expected. Overall, a solid book to teach to freshman or maybe sophomores.