Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

M. E. Kerrs first novelhailed by the New York Times as a timely, compelling, and brilliantly funny look at adolescence and friendship It was bad enough that they had to move to BrooklynBrooklyn Heights, as Tucker Woolfs dad instructs him to tell everyone after he loses his job. Now his father has suddenly developed an allergy to Tuckers cat, Nader, a nine-month-old calico Tucker found underneath a Chevrolet. Tuckers beloved pet finds a new home with overweight, outrageous Susan Dinky Hocker, the only person to answer Tuckers ad. As Tucker starts paying regular visits to Dinkys house to check up on Nader, his life begins to change. Dinky introduces Tucker to her strange cousin, Natalia Line, a compulsive rhymer whom Tucker finds fascinating. And enter P. John Knight, whos fat like Dinky . . . and now, like Nader. With this odd cast of characters, a little world is created for big kids who need to go on diets. And who also, all of them, need to find out who they are. A story of friendship, self-image, and surviving adolescence, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! is also about the terrorand exhilarationof daring to be yourself.