ALA Booklist (Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 1999)

Like LaFaye's Strawberry Hill and Koss' The Ashwater Experiment , this is another book about a child who hates his hippy parents and longs for a normal life, only to discover how lucky he is at home. Weeks treats the situation with wild exaggeration, a farcical plot, and just a touch of tenderness. Guy is so uncomfortable in his crazy family that he decides he was switched at birth with the sixth-grade class nerd, Bob-o. However, just one weekend in Bob-o's cold, empty home shows Guy where he really belongs and makes him feel for troubled Bob-o, whose parents have no time for their son. Many middle-graders will enjoy the gross humor (lots of snot and clatter and fishy smells) as much as the view of embarrassing adults who love you even though they drive you nuts. (Reviewed September 1, 1999)

Horn Book (Sun Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 1999)

Guy Strang's discomfort at the outrageous behavior and tacky taste of his mother and father leads him to believe they're not his real parents. He decides that the nerdiest kid in school--born on the same day and in the same hospital--must be their real child. The wacky scenario plays out over a weekend in which the boys switch homes. Guy's lessons in understanding emerge lightly in this humorous story.

Kirkus Reviews

PLB 0-06-028368-8 A boy finds himself so ill-suited for his family that he believes he must have been switched at birth—a classic childhood hunch that in Weeks's first novel, by turns drab and exaggerated, falls pretty flat. Sixth grader Guy thinks of himself as normal and feels alienated from his eccentric parents: his red-headed mother decoupages everything in sight and renders his father in ice sculpture; Guy's father, in turn, can do disgusting things with an oyster and is called "Wuckums." Along with his best friend, Buzz, Guy discovers among the school files that there was indeed another boy in town born the same day as he was: Bob-o. The weird and odious Bob-o has parents that seem remarkably normal to Guy, and they are left-handed and dimpled, as is he. Guy invents a class assignment that involves switching homes with Bob-o for a weekend; Guy discovers that normal isn't much fun and Bob-o finds kindred spirits in Guy's folks. The whole thing blows up in a melodramatic misinterpretation, as Guy figures out that there is no place like home—a foreordained ending in a novel that starts with a thin premise and grows flimsier with each page. (Fiction. 9-12)

School Library Journal

Gr 4-6Eleven-year-old Guy Strang is convinced that he was switched at birth with some other baby. How else can he explain how he ended up with his parents. His mother dances around the house in lime-green stretch pants, a fluorescent orange top, and see-through high heels with plastic fish inside and his father likes to suck oysters up his nose and then spit them out of his mouthin public. Guy is just a regular guy who wants ordinary parents. So when his best friend Buzz comes up with a plan to search the school records to see if any of the other sixth graders share Guys birthday, he agrees to go along with it. They find an exact match: Robert Smith (known by one and all as Bob-o), the weirdest kid in school. And, Bob-os parents are as ordinary as Guys are eccentric. Could Guys theory be true? He arranges to switch places with Bob-o for a weekend (a supposed class project) and finds that there is no place like home. The plot moves quickly, is written in a breezy style, and has a likable and well-drawn main character. Guys embarrassment over his parents behavior is something that most children have experienced at one time or another. However, there is never any doubt that his folks love and treasure him. A subplot concerns Guys efforts to turn Bob-o into a normal sixth grader. A clever take on the search for ones identity.Terrie Dorio, Santa Monica Public Library, CA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.