The title notwithstanding, it takes 95 eventful minutes between 11:41 a.m. and 1:16 p.m. for nerdy middle-school math whiz Sam to experience the terror of knowing that he is going to get his butt kicked by former best buddy Morgan; possibly acquire a girlfriend; be clobbered by a salad bowl during a massive food fight; and then actually get his butt kicked after joining a chaotic science-lab evacuation due to arson. Along with making protracted fun of clueless teachers, school lunches, and other traditional targets, the story chronicles the dissolution of a long childhood friendship due to diverging interests and abilities. Sam fills in the background history and grudgingly reveals that the widening rift is at least as much his fault as it is Morgan's. This portrays a common preadolescent life change with fair insight; readers will enjoy the general tumult and perhaps find reassurance in seeing that, by the end, Sam and Morgan have so thoroughly gone their separate ways that even their enmity has vanished.

Over the past year, best friends Sam and Chris grew apart. Star mathlete Sam has trouble fitting in, while Chris struggles in school but excels on the football field. Hasak-Lowy tells a familiar tale but resists forcing these young teens to work out their differences. Culminating in a physical altercation, this humorous, bittersweet story poignantly chronicles the end of a friendship.

Gr 5-8 Sam Lewis has been Morgan Sturtz's best friend all through elementary school. Despite Morgan's rise to popularity because of his football ability and Sam's small stature and securely cemented position as school nerd and math genius, he'd assumed their friendship would last forever. Enter new kid Chris Tripadero and an incident involving a note Sam scribbled in anger that remains unexplained for the majority of the book, and all of sudden Sam finds himself waiting in both fear and sadness for his former best friend to seek him out and kick his butt. At times mundane, as when readers wade through a slow-moving social-studies class, but with its fair share of high-stakes action, the novel does an excellent job of traversing the wilds of middle school drama. Sam triumphs in finding a friendship and love interest in fellow geek Amy Takahara, and his security in his own intelligence and worth is reassuring, but the heart of the story is the very real failure of his friendship with Morgan to survive the changes that come with adolescence. Occasional cartoon illustrations add some humor to the story, but seem unnecessary in what is already a strong and refreshingly straightforward portrait of identity and shifting-friendship trials. Joanna Sondheim, Columbia Grammar &; Preparatory School, New York City