The Cardturner / Louis Sachar / 336 pages

If you're a fan of Louis Sachar's Wayside School books, you'll find Cardturner to be very different.  Sachar's sense of humor is still present, but his subject matter and themes are more mature and more profound.  The summer of his junior year, Alton Richards plans to get a job.  His girlfriend has just dumped him for his best friend.  He is at loose ends and trying to cope with the loss.  His mother has volunteered him to drive his Uncle Lester (Trap) to his bridge games and to be his cardturner.  Trap has diabetes and is blind and needs someone to tell him what cards he has been dealt.  His mother's plan is to be written into wealthy Uncle Lester's will.  Alton learns a great deal about bridge - as do we, the readers - and life itself.  This book is a bit slow through all the bridge instruction, but the plot twist and the personability of the main character make it well worth the time spent reading.