Canadian author Gordon Korman once described himself to Leslie Bennetts in the New York Times as a "gutless troublemaker" at school, always demonstrating a healthy disrespect for authority, but never pushing such skepticism into outright anarchy. Such a description might fit some of Korman's cast of imaginary characters just as well. There are the roommates Boots and Bruno, who keep coming back for more adventures at Macdonald Hall; Bugs Potter, who nudges the bounds of authority to the limit, though not into chaos; the imaginative liar Zoe Bent in Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire; and any of the nose-picking aliens featured in Nose Pickers from Outer Space and its sequels. Korman writes about and for kids from middle grades to high school; humor is the name of the game, with touches of teen insight here and there. The successful "tried-and-true" Korman formula is, according to Connie Tyrrell Burns...