A review by tcbueti
Jeremy Bender vs. the Cupcake Cadets by Eric Luper
5.0
I was planning to just glance at this, but could not help reading "just one more chapter" to find out what would happen to these two guys.
REALLY funny--laugh-out-loud-and-read-parts-to-other-people funny. Jeremy messes up the engine of his dad's beloved Chris-Craft boat by spilling soda and paint on it. He and his best friend Slater decide that their only chance of earning the money is winning a lame balsa-wood boat race("The Windjammer Whirl")--but they have to be Cupcake Cadets (read Girls Scouts) to enter, AND they have to first sell a full quota of cupcakes and earn three Caliber badges. So they dress up as cadets Jenna and Samantha(in Jeremy's older sister's old uniforms), and they just gradually get in deeper and deeper into the deception. Tootsie, anyone?
Along the way they absorb many of the values of the Cupcake Cadets--"teamwork, cooperation, innovative thinking and a little vanilla frosting"--mostly by studying (memorizing) the handbook and learning corny, frosting-laden sayings--and how it feels to be total screw-ups at something they thought would be a (cup)cake walk. They go from being so bad that the other girls in their troop think they are saboteurs, to actually (accidental) saboteurs of a camping trip, to thinking of a great money-raising idea and working WITH their main "Whirlwind" competitor. A boy's-eye view of girldom, quick-moving and full of slaptick.
A couple of reviewers have mentioned "I Love Lucy"-That came to mind for me, too. And thier school is "The Thomas Scolari Academy"--Peter Scolari played opposite Tom Hanks in the 80's cross-dressing TV comedy series "Bosom Buddies". Hmmm.
REALLY funny--laugh-out-loud-and-read-parts-to-other-people funny. Jeremy messes up the engine of his dad's beloved Chris-Craft boat by spilling soda and paint on it. He and his best friend Slater decide that their only chance of earning the money is winning a lame balsa-wood boat race("The Windjammer Whirl")--but they have to be Cupcake Cadets (read Girls Scouts) to enter, AND they have to first sell a full quota of cupcakes and earn three Caliber badges. So they dress up as cadets Jenna and Samantha(in Jeremy's older sister's old uniforms), and they just gradually get in deeper and deeper into the deception. Tootsie, anyone?
Along the way they absorb many of the values of the Cupcake Cadets--"teamwork, cooperation, innovative thinking and a little vanilla frosting"--mostly by studying (memorizing) the handbook and learning corny, frosting-laden sayings--and how it feels to be total screw-ups at something they thought would be a (cup)cake walk. They go from being so bad that the other girls in their troop think they are saboteurs, to actually (accidental) saboteurs of a camping trip, to thinking of a great money-raising idea and working WITH their main "Whirlwind" competitor. A boy's-eye view of girldom, quick-moving and full of slaptick.
A couple of reviewers have mentioned "I Love Lucy"-That came to mind for me, too. And thier school is "The Thomas Scolari Academy"--Peter Scolari played opposite Tom Hanks in the 80's cross-dressing TV comedy series "Bosom Buddies". Hmmm.