{My thoughts} – Cameron Boxer is a rather interesting character. He is a typical middle school boy that enjoys being lost in video games and ignoring the world around him. He is so caught up in his lifestyle as a video gamer that he doesn’t realize all the things that are going on around him. He doesn’t realize how much he is missing out on and how much he could be a help around their small town.

Cameron is home playing video games when his mom tells him that she is going out and he needs to get some food out of the oven in ten minutes. He’d heard part of what she had told him but wasn’t listening. The fire department ends up bursting through their front door when the neighbors call because of massive dark smoke coming out of the windows of the house.

Cameron is so into his game that he doesn’t even realize that the fire department is there. After that incident, his parents end up rather upset with him and tell him he needs to find something else to spend his time doing or he won’t be able to ever play video games again.

Cameron and his friends come up with the idea for the P.A. G. {Positive Action Group} and they put it into play. The object is that he becomes the president of a group of children that do good for the community. His parents fall for his plan hook line and sinker. However, his sister isn’t on board of what he is saying and goes about making things much more difficult for him.

Instead of him being able to sit around and do what he wants like play video games. He and his friends are actually forced into helping the community. Cameron got more then he had bargained for when it came to his sister figuring things out. However, in the end everyone that was involved in the P.A.G. had gotten way more then they bargained for when trying to, and or actually joining the club.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I can imagine it is how a lot of children would like to pass their time. Sitting around playing video games. One of the most unproductive things a child can do. However, the more I read the book the more I got lost in the story. It was really nice to see a child with no ambition sort of come out of their shell. Cameron needed a lot of help and had to be nudged in the right directions, but in the end it turned out that he sort of had the right idea when he’d made the P.A.G. even if it had all been a way to pull a fast one over on his parents.

This is a fun book to read and I am sure that many children to come will enjoy the story. I look forward to reading the next book in the series soon. ( )

Independent Reading Level 3-7
Nebraska Golden Sower Award (Nominee – Honeybee (Chapter Book) – 2019)
Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award (Nominee – Grades 6-8 – 2018)
Volunteer State Book Award (Nominee – Intermediate – 2019) ( )

Cameron's whole life revolves around video games. After he almost burns his house down, his parents insist he do an extracurricular activity or they'll take away his video games. Cameron and his friends invent a fake club to get his parents off his back. However, other students hear about the club and sign up for it. Before he knows it, the club is involved in so many volunteer events that it'll take all of his abilities at slacking off to avoid the club and play video games. ( )

When did Gordon Korman get so boring? No, I mean it. His Macdonald Hall series was amazing, I Want to Go Home was fantastic, but this book feels like it's trying too hard. The characters feel like cardboard cutouts. None of them are relatable and Cam's turnaround feels like too little too late. I understand the formula Korman was going for - it's the one he's used in a lot of his books lately, but it didn't work. It was like watching a little kid make a peanut butter sandwich - they understand what they should be doing and they're following the rules exactly but for some reason it doesn't taste right and causes a lot of extra mess.

It wasn't a horrible book, but it wasn't one I would recommend to anyone anytime soon. My advice would be to stick with Korman's old stuff because that's where his talent really shines. ( )

Classic Korman, as funny as the books we read, reread, and loved in the 80s. Cameron Boxer, the "slacker" of the title, is similar to other Korman (anti)heroes like Rudy of I Want To Go Home, focussed on his own life and values and unwilling to expend any unnecessary effort to placate the adult world, yet basically decent at heart... somewhere deep down... if he'd just stop trying to game the system. A really fun read.