Review: Peanut by Ayun Halliday & Paul Hoppe

Peanut by Ayun Halliday & Paul Hoppe.

Schwartz & Wade Books
Publication Date: September 2012
List Price: $15.99
ISBN-13: 9780375865909

Review: Have you ever felt trapped by a lie that you told, or did you tell a lie to try to impress or make friends? Peanut, by Ayun Halliday, is about a teenage girl named Sadie Wildhack whose lie turns into a disaster. Sadie has recently moved to a new school, Plainfield Community High School, and plans to make friends by getting attention through a lie. Unfortunately, her plan to lie about having a serious peanut allergy is not the best choice. Instead of telling the truth, Sadie builds on her lies with even more of them. This does not just affect her. It affects the whole school community. But, every time Sadie feels like telling the truth, she chokes up and finds a lame excuse. Even though Sadie does make quality friends, she lies to them, which only makes her fearful of losing them more and more each day that the lies continue. Will Sadie tell the truth, or will she suffocate from all the lies?

Readers can relate to Sadie's problem since many kids have to start over and make new friends at different schools. Peanut is a good moral reminder to never tell a lie. Lies can all snowball into gigantic messes. As a teacher in the book says, "Next time you're tempted to bend the truth, take my advice and don'tÉ Sooner or later it will all come outÉ And then you'll wish you really had gone into anaphylactic shockÉ and diedÉ" This book is more appropriate for ages 12 and up due to the occasional mature subjects, hand gestures, foul language, romance, and cruelty. Besides that, readers will stay engaged to find out if Sadie tells the truth, and if she faces consequences for her actions. Ayun Halliday and Paul Hoppe deserve 4.5 stars for great comics, writing, illustrations, suspense, and for an overall amazing book.

Review written by Allie (6th grade student).

We would like to thank Random House for providing a copy of Peanut for this review.

Have you read Peanut? How would you rate it?