The Diary of A Seventh Grade Hybrid

The Diary Of A Seventh Grade Hybrid is written by Lee Mavin and available through Createspace.com and amazon.com is a fantasy adventure. The book is 232 pages in length broken into manageable daily bitesize outtakes suitable for any age reader.

Lee J. Mavin lives in Shanghai, China with his wife and daughter. He teaches, has written and published three books including a poetry and unused lyrics book, plus a collection of horror themed short stories. Lee also writes articles and the monthly must do’s and don’ts in Shanghai for The Get Go Magazine.

The day before Ziggy (Sigmund) starts seventh grade at Fuqain International his mom hands him a notebook to record all thoughts and memories so that he does not forget a thing, unfortunately for him he does not remember the day before this.
As if being a seventh grader wasn’t hard enough poor Sigmund (Ziggy) Zhao has a huge secret to hide under his cap, voices in his head and the school bully Timmy Tang to deal with threatening to “flush him”.
There’s something about Ziggy. At first he appears to be your average loner at school who has few friends but introduce the school bully and some very strange teachers and there are things to be revealed beneath the surface, things that Ziggy does not want revealed. So when it becomes common knowledge that Ziggy has antennas on his head. Of course the whole school want to know him which just about makes things worse for him in that his popularity drives Timmy Tang round the bend and fuels his fury for flushing Ziggy even more.
With the teachers behaving strange around him, and his random kidnappings he decides something is going on and he needs to find out exactly what. But whatever it is it seems to have something to do with these strange voices that keep feeding him information on the Toyota Company, a man named Takeshi Shibuya and an alien attack on the planet in the future.
Joining the basketball team and taking a few extra classes how is Ziggy going to keep his secret? Why can he not stop writing poetry for his English Teacher the flame haired Miss Woods? How will the others kids and teachers take his secret? Why does he keep getting kidnapped? Who is the quiet weird girl constantly following him? And what is with the voices in his head to do with The Toyota Company and a supposed future alien attack?
With question after question piling up school is about to get all kinds of crazy but it is nothing when compared to his own eccentric mother’s behaviour and lack of interest to the goings on in his life.

The Diary of A Seventh Grade Hybrid is a title which literally describes the book. Unable to remember his past Ziggy is asked to keep a diary in order to help him remember. Written on a day to day basis covering school, dates and adventures this book reads like a kid who can’t quite get his words out fast enough.
An enjoyable book spanning a school year and based in Shanghai, Lee J. Mavin has done a marvellous job at portraying an average Joe whose not so average afterall. A possible hero in the making will there be more of Ziggy to come in the future?
I give Lee J. Mavin and The Diary of A Seventh Grade Hybrid 4 out of 5 stars and would recommend it to any child from around ten years of age upwards.

By R.N. Hadley