121 Express by Monique Polak

Written at a 3.9 grade level, this book is part of the Orca Currents series that is for junior high/high school students who have low reading levels. I have quite a few of these in my high school library and they are very popular with the lower reading level kids.

However, I'm not too impressed with this book. Lucas is starting a new school and decides to be a troublemaker so he isn't stuck with the brainiac image from his old school. The setting for most of the book is the bus--Lucas must ride the Montreal transit to school. And the kids are rotten--throwing stuff out windows, spraying the bus with Diet Coke, etc. They even give the bus driver a mental breakdown. Of course, Lucas "sees the light" and magically decides to defend "Raghead," an Arab kid he nicknamed. In reality, I don't see this drastic change happening. If he were a good kid to start with, he never would have taken up with the idiots in the back of the bus, even if he wanted to be cool. And the sudden change just doesn't fit with his bad boy attitude.