Written by Michael Gerard Bauer, the book "Don't Call Me Ishmael" won the 2008 award for children's literature at Writers' Week, Australia's oldest writers' festival. This book was published at the year of 2006 and has a genre of "young-adult fiction".
The main character of the story is Ishmael Leseur, Ishmael claims to have a syndrome called Ishmael leseur's syndrome- a chronic ailment capable of turning an otherwise normal person into a ‘walking disaster area registering nine point nine on the open-ended
imbecile scale’. He was bullied by a kid named Barry Bagsley. Barry teases him about his name and he tries to avoid Barry and acts invisible but swears to stand up to Barry in Year nine. His year nine teacher, Miss Tarango told the whole class about the name Ishmael coming from Moby Dick. A new boy called James Scobie becomes a target for bullying because of his appearance. James responds to the bully's insults with humour. He tells the class that he is fearless because he has a brain tumor that damaged the part of his brain that feels fear. Barry is the only person that does not believe James. About a week later Barry puts a lot of insects and spiders in James's desk, but James is not scared. During a rugby match James's fearlessness changes the game.Orazio Zorzotto an active and independent boy, Bill kingsley a fat sci-fi geek and Ignatius Prindabel a nerd.
This book is a bit boring when a teen reads this. I think it's suitable for kids because kids these days never read kiddy books no more.
