Edward Lear's poem the Owl and the Pussycat saved Clayton Collins's life when he was six years old, and so Clayton believes a literary life is his destiny. He is desperate to follow Percy Bysshe Shelly and Edna St. Vincent Millay to early poetry glory. But his spreadsheet shows 212 rejections and not one acceptance for his poems. He is an awkward misfit, and his classmates scornfully call him "the poetry guy." Clayton is the poetry editor of his school's geeky literary magazine, and someone is anonymously sending him poems that are so good they rival Walt Whitman's. A once-in-a-generation poet is hiding. It's the great mystery of Clayton's young life, and he is determined to discover who the poet is. His fourteen-year-old sister Beth is a math prodigy who has skipped two grades. She is convinced that the lack of a girlfriend is the root of her brother's troubles. She introduces him to the horse whisperer Brook, to the aspiring magician Lily, and to the queen of the goths Lea. These dates are all disasters. Clayton's summer jobs are as a chicken sexer, a cotton candy vendor, and a bee-hive transporter. The jobs are one messy calamity after another. Another calamity may await Clayton: the dazzling cheerleader Edie Fleming wants something from him, and she is skilled at getting what she wants. And yet another: Beth has a secret she is desperate to keep hidden. The Diary of the Failed Poet Clayton Collins, Age 15 chronicles Clayton's quest to gain literary fame in his free-verse world. He is not defenseless: he has poet William Ernest Henley's "unconquerable soul." Readers who liked Junior's diary in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and Adrian Mole's diary in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Age 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend would enjoy reading Clayton Collins' diary.
Genre: Children's Fiction
Genre: Children's Fiction
Used availability for James Thayer's Diary of the Failed Poet Clayton Collins, age 15