Gr 4-7-When 13-year-old Michael eats the entire pan of his mom's triple chocolate fudge brownies, something strange happens. He is no longer the popular class clown, sitting in the back of the room. Instead, he has turned into a brainiac, excelling in all of his work and snagging the lead role in the school play. It turns out that his father's computer chip ended up in the cakes and, by eating them, Michael has gained all of its knowledge. What ensues are crazy, and often funny, attempts at destroying the chip while it is still inside him. This humorous story is a quick and easy read. Children will relate to Michael, as well as to his friends Hil and Sludge, and will take to them quickly as they try to destroy the chip, get through school, and fend off Harold, Michael's enemy. The fast pace of the book will also appeal to reluctant readers.-Carly B. Wiskoff, Sayville Library, NY Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Michael was comfortable in his role as a lazy but reasonably popular middle-schooler, but suddenly he's spouting Shakespeare, cooking gourmet dishes, working advanced math problems, and speaking in languages he has never studied. Aided by two good friends, he tries to keep this bizarre phenomenon under wraps while they figure out how to reverse it. But Michael's brainpower is not only enhanced, it's irrepressible, and his attempts to suppress often end in disaster. Fortunately, Michael's disasters are comic rather than tragic, and readers (especially those who like puns) will enjoy watching him muddle through. Many will figure out the source of Michael's superior brainpower long before he does. And while the solution makes even less sense than the problem, Michael's accessible, first-person narration makes this improbable tale quite easy to swallow. An amusing first novel from a Canadian writer.