Science Fair

By: Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

Narrated by: Phil Gigante

Toby Harbinger, an eighth grader at Hubble Middle School near Washington, D.C., is in big trouble. He made the mistake of selling his dad's priceless original Star Wars blaster to a lunatic who thinks he's Darth Vader and travels with a large, hairy sidekick known as the Wookiee. Now the lunatic wants more from Toby, whose only hope of getting out of this mess is to win first prize at the school science fair: $5,000.

But others want the prize too - a group of rich students and their super-ambitious, high-powered parents, who will stop at nothing to see their spoiled kids win. What these parents don't know is that an evil mastermind is using them to get hold of top-secret military technology as part of a fiendish plan to destroy the United States.

When Toby discovers this plot, he and his two best friends, Tamara and Micah, try to alert the school authorities, including the fearsome principal, known as The Hornet. But powerful forces are working against Toby and his friends: they're snared in a frame-up and get taken into federal custody, facing espionage charges. Meanwhile, the mastermind proceeds with his evil plan of destruction.

In a desperate bid to escape, the kids find themselves in league with a fairly mad scientist and two bumbling foreign dignitaries armed with cheese so smelly it is used as wolf repellent. With the seconds ticking away and the FBI close on their heels, this bizarre band sets off on a madcap mission to stop the science fair - and save the country before it's too late...

©2008 Dave Barry (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

family fun

My 13 year old son and listen to this book on the way to his orthodontists appointments, they are an hours drive from our home, we could not wait to get into the car and listen to it, the narrater is fun and entertaining for people of all ages.

Both Clever and Hilarious

This book was action packed from the get go. The characters were pretty fleshed out and the plot is genius. I highly recommend this book for kids age 10 and up. You get would enjoy the plot, but some of the vocabulary is pretty sophisticated.

Wrong Narrator for This Story

The story would have been much better If it was narrated by a teen or someone like Luke Daniels.
Reading this story would be preffered over listening. I really enjoyed Dave Barry's "The worst night ever" and the other book in that series.

The right narrator would boost this to a 5 star rating.

Classic Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, amazing performance by Phil Gigante

It is exactly what you would expect from these writers. Fast, fun, and just enough silly. The true standout was Mr. Gigante’s performance - truly amazing! I found myself mesmerized and thought, on more than one occasion, how does he do that?

A delightful listen.

Funny story, great narration

Very entertaining, a little scary that the story seems plausible. Narrator gives a wonderful performance, and has a different voice for each character.