Jeff Baron: 'Sean Rosen Is Not For Sale'

Certain ages have bad raps: the terrible twos and middle-school kids jump to mind.

That 'no' phase, typical of 2-year-olds, and the newfound independence of tweens, wanting to be teenagers yet clinging to childhood, are very sweet - especially when compared to what's coming.

Sean Rosen is a tween and, by the end of this well-done novel, I loved Seany, as his parents call him. He is a sweet, smart, talented kid.

Actually, he is so smart and talented he feels much more like an adult in drag than a boy in seventh grade, especially in his emails. And that is my sole criticism of Jeff Baron's second book featuring Sean.

Most of the time, though, Baron, who grew up in Linden, lives in this boy's head, a crowded place. Sean is a burgeoning film writer and makes podcasts about the mundane moments of life. He's such a likeable guy and has such a likeable outlook that his podcasts have a fan base. The podcasts at seanrosen.com are about doughnuts and dogs. Really, what's not to like?

The book follows an only child who lives with his mom, a nurse, and his dad, a plumber in a friendly town. Sean does well at school, though he's not a gifted athlete or the top student. He is a genuinely nice kid, the sort you hope your children are and are friends with, the sort who make it worth investing the time it takes to read almost 400 pages.

Here, he's talking about music and his friend, Buzz, who's not too bright, but they've been pals forever:

'That's what's so great about music. You can like Buzz's songs and you can like my songs, and you can also like the songs your parents liked when they were teenagers. You don't have to choose. Whatever you like, you just like.'

Sean has this great idea for a movie, 'A Week with Your Grandparents,' and he wants to write the screenplay. He is a savvy enough kid, who grew up when Google could answer any question, so he learned he needed representation. Sean wound up inventing Dan Welch, whose name is a combo of what Sean saw in his refrigerator - Dannon yogurt and Welch's grape juice.

Sean's idea eventually triggers a bidding war with Hollywood players. It's pretty cute, as Sean has to look up what 'bidding war' means.

Sean, however, doesn't tell his parents. He doesn't exactly lie to them, he just neglects to tell them that he's invented a manager and emails Hollywood executives who now want to pay him large sums of cash.

Here, he visits his father's mother in Florida. Sean wants to learn about his grandfather who went to prison for conning people out of money. His grandma takes him to Butterfly Kingdom, where butterflies alight on trees and bushes:

'Like if you had a place called Teenager Kingdom, you'd have free Cokes and Snickers and donuts everywhere, so there would always be teenagers when people came to see them.'

By the end, I not only want to see Sean's movie get made, I like Baron's writing and this kid enough to read the first in this young adult series, 'I Represent Sean Rosen.'

As the book goes on, Baron makes very good use of dialog between teens, texts and dialog between Sean's parents.

Sean has a new friend, Ethan, whose brother died. Sean sends his fabricated agent off to another country just to get a kid off his back. One of his classmates has a band, Taxadurmee, and he wants Sean's agent to help the band. Rather than admit he crated the agent, he sends him away. Sean is clever and he is a seventh grader.

He's a naturally fast runner, but part of one practice on the track team confirmed that he's not one for constant practice.

Sean's interactions with a neighbor dog, Baxter, are adorable, especially when Baxter's owners hire Sean to take care of the dog for a couple of days. Sean starts out great before school, walks the dog, feeds him and then, after school, forgets. He's terrified that he has killed the dog.

In between handing in an English paper a day late, not taking to the track team, avoiding cafeteria during lunch and going on the big seventh-grade class trip, Sean holds his own with representatives from competing Hollywood studios and has to look up a lot of the movie lingo.

Jacqueline Cutler: jacquelinecutler@verizon.net