Don't Call Me Ishmael

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Don't Call Me Ishmael
Author	Michael Gerard Bauer
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre(s)	Young-adult fiction
Publisher	HarperTeen
ISBN	ISBN 0061348341

Don't Call Me Ishmael is a novel by Australian author Michael Gerard Bauer. It is about Ishmael Leseur, a 14-year old boy who believes he suffers from a syndrome. It won the 2008 award for children's literature at Writers' Week, Australia's oldest writers' festival.^[1] It was short-listed for the Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year award in the older reader category in 2007.^[2]

[edit] Plot summary

The novel's main character Ishmael is named after the narrator of Moby Dick. He was given the name because just before he was born, his parents performed a scene from Moby Dick. Ishmael showed no symptoms of his apparent syndrome until his first day of secondary school. The school bully, Barry Bagsley, teases him about his name. When Ishmael starts Year 9, his new homeroom teacher Miss Tarango automatically exposes Barry as a bully. She tells the whole class about the name Ishmael coming from Moby Dick, which gives Barry and his friends more names to tease Ishmael with. Ishmael later intervenes when he sees Barry and his friends tease a younger boy from Year 4. A new boy called James Scobie becomes a target for bullying because of his appearance. However, James responds to the bully's taunts with humour. He tells the class that he is fearless because he had a brain tumour that damaged the part of his brain that feels fear. Barry is the only person that does not believe James. About a week later Barry puts a lot of insects and spiders in James's desk, but James is not frightened. During a soccer match James's fearlessness changes the course of the game. Ishmael, Scobie, a funny boy called Orazio Zorzotto, and an overweight boy called Bill Kingsley participate in debating. Barry and his friends mock Bill about his weight by destroying his debating certificate. Kelly Faulkner thanks Ishmael because she is the sister of the Year 4 boy Ishmael saved from Barry. On the last day of school, Ishmael invents a prayer that will stop Barry from bullying. However, he eventually decides not to say his prayer, because he did not want to humilate Barry's innocent parents. Ishmael then receives a letter from Kelly inviting him to her best friends party. In the last chaper, Ishmael excitedly runs onto the school oval, and realises that his life isn't so bad.