Before Gordon Korman got into the adventure books he writes today, he was a comedy writer, famous for forcing kids to read books in private on account of laughing so hard. The Toilet Paper Tigers is one of Korman’s hilarious books, with tons of jokes, memorable characters, and a great surprise ending.
Summary
The story is told in the first person by Corey Johnson, a kid who wants to have some fun by joining a baseball team during the summer. Unfortunately for him, he gets stuck on a team with a bunch of rejects and a coach in Professor Pendergast who doesn’t have a clue about baseball. He only became coach so his visiting granddaughter, Kristy, would be able to make some friends.
Kristy, though only a twelve year-old girl, is from New York, putting her far above the Tigers, who merely live in Texas. She quickly gains leverage on them by snapping a photo of them in their underwear or worse, and uses this to bribe the team to do whatever she wants. She becomes the real coach and begins working to get the team into playing shape.
At the beginning of the season they can barely get one hit in a whole game, but Kristy goes one by one to make the players play better. She forces one kid onto a diet, ruins the life of another kids’ older brother so he’ll stop picking on him, and even tries hypnosis on one player.
Although Corey objects to Kristy’s tyrannical ways, his letter to the head of the little league for some reason goes unheeded and he is forced to live under her reign. She becomes popular, however, when they start getting better and eventually begin to pile up wins.
In the end the built has a couple of twists, including a crazy one I definitely would never have seen coming. Korman’s later book, Jake ReInvented, has an extremely similar twist as the theme and I am sure it originally came from this book.
Review
Although I have heard people say that Korman is better at third person than first person books, this one is definitely an exception. We get to know the characters and live right along with them. Kristy’s New York slang is hilarious, ranging from her frequent reference to “the reality sandwich,” to calling her grandfather “my main man P.P.”
Her actions are just as crazy, and she easily manages to dominate anyone she wants, including a motorcycle gang. As one of her victims puts it, “Some people curse you out, maybe give you dirty looks, maybe even pick a fight. Her? She ruins your life!”
The other characters have fun stories, and we never know what is going to happen when Kristy sets out to cure them. The most surprising thing in the book, however, is the truth about Kristy herself.
It was kind of surprising to me how far the baseball team did end up going. I was sure a couple of times that Korman would let the team end short of the championship, but he keeps pushing it all the way for the glory. Some people call it predictable, but it is actually unpredictable because it is too predictable to think that an author would actually do it! Either way, it’s fun.
This is one of Korman’s best books, and right in the middle of when he was full swing into comedy. Great jokes are sprinkled throughout almost as afterthoughts, and middle grade boys will find themselves laughing throughout this baseball tale.
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