The New Nick Kramer or My Life As a Baby-sitter

by James Howe, Jeff Mangiat (Illustrator)

Trying to win the heart of Jennifer Edwards, ninth-grader Nick Kramer enrolls in one of Jennifer's classes--Baby-sitting 101--and he surprisingly learns to like his new afterschool baby-sitting job.

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

James Howe has written more than eighty books in the thirty-plus years he's been writing for young readers. It sometimes confuses people that the author of the humorous Bunnicula series also wrote the dark young adult novel, The Watcher, or such beginning reader series as Pinky and Rex and the E.B. White Read Aloud Award-winning Houndsley and Catina and its sequels. But from the beginning of his career (which came about somewhat by accident after asking himself what kind of vampire a rabbit might make), he has been most interested in letting his imagination take him in whatever direction it cared to. So far, his imagination has led him to picture books, such as I Wish I Were a Butterfly and Brontorina (about a dinosaur who dreams of being a ballerina), mysteries, poetry (in the upcoming Addie on the Inside), and fiction that deals with issues that matter deeply to him. He is especially proud of The Misfits, which inspired national No Name-Calling Week (www.nonamecallingweek.org) and its sequel Totally Joe. He does not know where his imagination will take him in the next thirty-plus years, but he is looking forward to finding out.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is just amazing. Sometimes I really do get the impression that James Howe couldn't write a bad book if he tried.
The characters in "The New Nick Kramer or My Life as a Baby-sitter" absolutely leap off the page with realism. The development of their personalities and attitudes toward life and each other is delivered with the aid of a writing style that borders on genius; in fact, James Howe is the only author other than Jerry Spinelli that really causes in me twinges of envy in regard to his writing skills.
James Howe is something of a master artisan when it comes to the creation of illuminating stories about relationships. "The New Nick Kramer or My Life as a Baby-sitter" is packed with deeply meaningful relationships of this kind, layered far more richly than one would gather from a cursory glance at the cover or even a read of the book jacket. The tone is fresh and the events themselves will resonate deeply in the heart of the reader.
I completely love this book, and warmly and affectionately set it forth and recommend it for anyone at all out there who reads this review. I actually miss the characters now that I'm finished, and THAT is something truly rare. James Howe is a very special story teller, and I have been enriched for having read this book, to which I would readily give three and a half stars; I thought hard about giving it four stars.

[Kimk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed it. I really recommend it to everyone.