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The Autobiography of Meatball Finkelstein

by Ross Venokur

3.3 of 5 stars 3.30 · rating details · 10 ratings · 4 reviews

Meatball Finkelstein was born big. He’s always been and always will be a big guy, and he’s cool with that. But he seems to have more than his share of problems: his large size coupled with his parents’ unfortunate choice of name–yes, it says Meatball on his birth certificate!–make him the prime candidate for the attention of Rufus Delaney, the most horrible bully at school ...more

Paperback , 160 pages

Published May 14th 2002 by Yearling (first published May 8th 2001)

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(showing 1-16 of 16)

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Oct 16, 2011 Alex Blose rated it 3 of 5 stars

The reader follows 13-year-old Meatball Finkelstein - an overweight vegetarian, brother of the perfect Precious who will no longer speak to him, best friend of one-armed Max and number one target for bully Rufus Delaney. Meatball goes to school at Parkman which is ruled by Principal Walrus W. Weaselman or "Valrrruz Doubleju Veazelman" as he calls himself. "The Weasel man" as the students call him, is feared and hated by all of the students and teachers alike. So why you ask, is he there? Well, i The reader follows 13-year-old Meatball Finkelstein - an overweight vegetarian, brother of the perfect Precious who will no longer speak to him, best friend of one-armed Max and number one target for bully Rufus Delaney. Meatball goes to school at Parkman which is ruled by Principal Walrus W. Weaselman or "Valrrruz Doubleju Veazelman" as he calls himself. "The Weasel man" as the students call him, is feared and hated by all of the students and teachers alike. So why you ask, is he there? Well, it all comes down to the P.W.O, the PPP and the formula FV.

One day, after being dared to eat a meatball by bully Rufus Delaney, Meatball discovers he has super shape shifting abilities! Turning into a tornado, clown, his own mother, an elephant and much more, Meatball grabs the attention of "the Weasel man". In exchange for better grades put on his permanent record, Meatball must transform into many crazy animals and people for the principal to take pieces of each one and add to a slimy green mixture kept in his office.

Meatball, Max and the cute new girl Jessica George know something is up when Principal Weaselman will not tell Meatball why he needs him for such a special project, so they decide to do a little snooping of their own. Upon discovering some secret videos, a hidden bathroom elevator, a secret headquarters in the basement of their school and other secrets of the principal, things start to get out of control! Meatball and his friends take the formula FV upon finding out what it really is and try to keep it away from the P.W.O. Soon though, Meatball's closest friends and enemies are kidnapped and will only be returned if the formula FV is too. What will Meatball do? Will he give back the formula FV and suffer the consequences so he can get his friends back? Or will his friends be gone forever?

When first starting to read this book, I did not think that I was going to like it. While reading more into it, I really started to enjoy it. I couldn't wait to find out what Meatball would turn into next after eating each meatball. When the book neared the part of the P.W.O and the formula FV, I could not put it down. I wanted to know what these things were, what they were for and what would happen when Meatball and his friends took the formula.

This book was a very easy read because of how it is set up. Many of the chapters are very short and leave you hanging at the end, so you just have to keep reading and reading until you come to a good stopping point (which there weren't many!). This book had just enough background information on each of the characters and enough details to know what was going on and be able to picture it in your mind - which is something I love to be able to do while reading something. Besides the shape shifting of Meatball, the characters were very believable for those in a middle school setting. I would really recommend this book to anyone who likes an easy read which involves a crazy, world-ruling principal, shape shifting main character and a secret society against all students.

As a future teacher, I might use this book to recommend to a struggling reader. It was an easy read and the way that the chapters are split up so they are shorter and almost don't seem like chapters would make it easy for someone who is struggling to finish in a timely fashion. The storyline is also something that I believe a young reader, probably more likely a boy, would really enjoy. ...more

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Sep 09, 2014 Ariana Arias rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really like this book because it's funny and it's about food

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Jul 18, 2009 Barb rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Tamara reads this to our kids. I only ever hear snippets, so I took if from the room for a summer quick-read... don't tell Tamara!

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Oct 04, 2012 Bobin rated it 4 of 5 stars

hilarious and great for kids to read! unless they're vegetarians...

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