Here’s the sad truth of it: I am in the second round of braces. I suffered through the first round while in middle school, and now, years later, I found myself back in the orthodontist’s chair with some wayward bottom teeth. (Why couldn’t they have behaved as well as the top teeth? Why?) I’m currently in month four of a proposed six month treatment, and let me tell you, it’s every bit as uncomfortable as I remember. While I appreciate the fact my foray into brace-dom is only going to be a quarter of what I experienced the first time, I cannot WAIT to get this metal out of my mouth.
As I started reading NERDS, my current situation gave me a lot of immediate sympathy for Jackson Jones, who, on page 4, is having a conversation to one I had five months back with my orthodontist. (However, Jackson is a bully, and popular, and athletic, so our similarities pretty much end at the braces). The braces cause a huge ripple effect on his life, and overnight, he becomes a shadow of the kid he used to be. Friends ignore him, and his enormous headgear is too big for sports helmets, so his athletic career comes to an abrupt halt. He accidentally gets stuck in a locker and discovers that it’s a passageway into the headquarters for NERDS: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society. NERDS is a government-run organization that uses kids (with supercharged “upgrades” that turn their weaknesses into strengths) as secret ops, mainly because kids are so at ease with the technology the job requires. Also, the fact they’re kids makes them less likely suspects. When the scanners come upon Jackson, they find his weakness is his teeth, and so his braces are upgraded, making them into offensive and defensive weapons. When the currently employed NERDS from his school discover he’s found his way into their lair, they are incensed. Jackson was, until quite recently, the bane of most of their lives, and forgiveness for his bullying ways is slow in coming.
NERDS is a fun middle-grade romp, with a great multicultural cast. Boys and girls are equally adept using their extraordinary “upgraded” skills, and a girl leads the team (code name Pufferfish, who is allergic to lies and betrayal). The art, by Ethen Beavers, is wonderfully Cartoon Network-esque, and the chapter breaks are fun takes on ID scanners: fingerprint, optical scan, and one where the scanner demands cash. Michael Buckley has already proved his ability to manage a large cast of characters in his Sisters Grimm novels, and that comes in handy here, as there are a lot of names to remember, and code names to boot. The book does weigh in at over 300 pages, so that may deter less confident readers. NERDS gives the geeks and underdogs of the world a chance to shine, and that’s something this current Braceface is glad to see.
