Daniel Pinkwater’s “The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death”

This is a children’s novel about nerdy kids in a fictionalized Chicago sneaking out to watch movies at an all-night theater. It also has a bunch of goofball Pinkwater nonsense (complimentary) but for kids of the right age its real resonance is a blueprint for a particular sort of rebellion-slash-individuation (sneak out and have your mind blown by an Laurel and Hardy marathon, make a speech about how stupid your school is, make a punk-rock new friend.)

As a kid I loved all sorts of things Pinkwater did, but “The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death” turned out to be a sort of map to my future.

And it’s got a great title.