The Big Blueberry Barf-Off! (Rotten School Series #1)

by R. L. Stine, Trip Park (Illustrator)

Overview

Bernie Bridges Rules the School!

He convinced the cafeteria lady that a Milky Way bar is a vegetable.

He got the coach to make giving wedgies an offical school sport.

Bernie always has a plan.

But how will he get spoiled rich kid Sherman Oaks to give him his watch—the one that tells time, plays DVDs, and pops popcorn?

Hint: It involves a contest, 25 blueberry pies, and a gallon of barf!

Warning! Don't read this book after lunch!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060785888
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	03/18/2008
Series:	Rotten School Series , #1
Pages:	109
Sales rank:	427,911
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

R.L. Stine began his writing career at the age of nine and has been at it ever since, becoming a bestselling author several times over. Among his many groundbreaking credits are Fear Street, the first young adult horror series, and Goosebumps, the bestselling series that made Stine the #1 bestselling author in America for three years in a row. He lives with his wife in New York City.

Trip Park grew up in Ithaca, New York, and went to college at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was first drawn to advertising. He then moved to Chicago, later New York, where he joined advertising agencies and worked on kids’ favorites including Cap’n Crunch, Gatorade, Kellogg’s, and Ronald McDonald. His children’s commercials have won numerous awards. But advertising also brought something equally as rewarding. There he got to work with some of his favorite illustrators. Watching these artists create their pieces inspired Trip Park to try his hand at illustrating himself.

Trip Park has illustrated a number of children's books including Gopher Up Your Sleeve, written by Tony Johnston, Trout, Trout, Trout! (A Fish Chant) and Ant, Ant, Ant! (An Insect Chant), both written by April Pulley Sayre. He has also developed characters and helped animate commercials for Nickelodeon, The California State Fair, Lego, and many others. When Rotten School came along, the opportunity to translate to the drawing board R.L. Stine’s cast of kids was a wonderful chance to combine his love for children’s illustration with this group of rotten students. His work can be seen at www.tripparkproductions.com.

Trip lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife, Laura and four children.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

October 8, 1943

Place of Birth:

Columbus, Ohio

Education:

B.A., Ohio State University, 1965

Website:

http://www.rlstine.com

Table of Contents

Editorial Reviews

With a cast of characters who prefer tricks to treats, R.L. Stine kicks off the paper-over-board Rotten School series: #1 The Big Blueberry Barf-Off! and #2 The Great Smelling Bee, illus. by Trip Park (see Children's Audio below). Park's madcap cartoons of freckle-face, bespectacled narrator Bernie Bridges (aka "Big B") and his buds Belzer, Feenman and Crench combined with Stine's wacky dialogue result in a kind of Fat Albert dynamics that will make kids want to visit this boarding school again and again. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A boarding school series, "Rotten School" provides middle readers with an egotistical but, nevertheless, likeable antihero, Bernie Bridges. In this novel, fourth-grader Bernie schemes to win his arch rival's watch. What makes Bernie popular with his dorm mates in Rotten House is his ability to make their school life better. By this book, he has already convinced the cook to accept a Milky Way as a vegetable, the headmaster to make Game Boys a school supply, and the coach to make Giving Wedgies a school sport. Now Bernie plans a pie-eating contest between Rotten House and Nyce House, where Sherman Oaks—with his new solid-gold watch with forty-two functions—resides. But Sherman is not the nice guy that his house name suggests; he plays some dirty tricks of his own. Plus, Bernie must convince the cooking-class teacher to have twenty-five blueberry pies made. The ultimate conniver, Bernie leads his house to victory and wins the watch. Yet, in a final turn of fate, he must give it up, along with the girl of his dreams. There will surely be other contests to rival this one, with its middle-grade humor of towel slapping, hair shaving, belching, and barfing. Though caricature, the illustrations are right on target to reveal a life where crazy kids rule by outsmarting their easily-fooled teachers. Studying does not seem to get in the way of raucous fun at Rotten School. 2005, A Parachute Press Book/HarperCollins Publishers, and Ages 8 to 12.
—Carol Raker Collins, Ph.D.

Children's Literature