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    The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
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    The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
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    The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

    Written by Josh Berk

    Narrated by Jim Meskimen

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Being a hefty, deaf newcomer almost makes Will Halpin the least popular guy at Coaler High. But when he befriends the only guy less popular than him, the dork-namic duo has the smarts and guts to figure out who knocked off the star quarterback. Will can't hear what's going on, but he's a great observer. So, who did it? And why does that guy talk to his fingers? And will the beautiful girl ever notice him? (Okay, so Will's interested in more than just murder . . .)

    Those who prefer their heroes to be not-so-usual and with a side of wiseguy will gobble up this witty, geeks-rule debut.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 9, 2011
    ISBN9780307916976
    Unavailable
    The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
    Author

    Josh Berk

    Josh Berk is the author of Camp Murderface, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, and several other books for young readers. He is a librarian and lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with his family.

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    Reviews for The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

    3.5/5

    83 ratings14 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Digital audiobook performed by Jim Meskimen This is a humorous coming-of-age story with a bit of a mystery thrown in and featuring an unlikely hero. Will Halpin is deaf, overweight and struggling to make friends in his new school. He's left the safety of "deaf school" and chosen to mainstream at the local public high school, but the teachers can't (or won't) get the hang of always facing him so he can read lips. He is a skilled observer, however, and he jots his notes on his fellow students and teachers in a notebook. His one friend is the uber-dork Devon Smiley, and when the school's quarterback (and all-around jerk) "falls" down a mine shaft on a school field trip, they channel the Hardy Boys to investigate. I’m glad to see a book that features a main character with a disability, who finds ways to deal effectively in a world that doesn’t always made accommodations for him. Will (and Devon) also have to deal with the usual drama of high school – bullies, the “in” crowd vs the nerds, teachers who don’t really care, unrequited love, and the universally hated showers after gym class. It's a fast read, and I loved Will & Devon's humor.Jim Meskimen does a fine job of narrating the audio version. He set a good pace and I was quickly caught up in the story line.
    • 5/5
      This was a great book -- funny, witty, touching and adventurous. Will Halpin, the main character, is deaf-mute and overweight. He admits to these three facts freely. Resigned to his place as an outsider, he uses his observer status to watch all of the other students around him at his school (often making hilarious observations in the process). Will Halpin is a great character to get inside, and I loved all of his sarcastic remarks. The book turns into a mystery halfway through, and Will suddenly uses his observational skills to become an amateur sleuth. It's all great fun, with the appropriate "whodunit?" revelation at the end. I could read this book several times and never get tired of it.
    • 3/5
      Outsider kid goes to a new school, reluctantly makes friends with another outsider kid, gets picked on by popular kids, popular kid dies on a field trip, outsider kids solve the mystery Hardy-Boys Style. New spin: outsider status is bestowed on the original kid due to deafness (his friend is just a dork).

      I liked it okay, though I don't totally get all the stars it's racking up from various review journals. I think what's bothering me most is the number of fat jokes. Will's weight has very little to do with the story (seems like an extra thing to throw in just to clinch the "outsider" status), but he constantly makes cracks about it despite it not being an important part of his character development at all.

      I'd read more from this author, but this isn't one of my favorites of recent reads.
    • 5/5
      Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be a guy. I figure Nick Hornby is pretty authoritative on the subject of adult guys, so I look to him for insight. Then I discovered Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid series, so now I have a pretty good idea what it's like to be a 12-year-old boy.

      When I heard my husband cracking up, literally bringing himself to tears he was laughing so hard, I checked out what he was reading. It was then I knew that Josh Berk was going to be my key to the mind of the teenage boy.

      The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin is funny, sweet, funny, a little snarky, and oh-so-very-funny. There's mystery, great dialogue, capering, and so much fun.

      I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of this book, so everyone else is going to have to be patient, but boy is it worth the wait. My 14 and 12 year old nephews are going to adore this book, I just know it. So will you.

    • 4/5
      Will Halpin was deaf, a new student in a new school, and a bit overweight. He is dragged into helping solve the mystery of what happened to the star quarterback after he is found dead in the Happy Memory Coal Mine on a field trip. Will and his new friend, Devon, investigate using smartphones, lip reading, and cleverness (with no small amount of humor!). This is a great book for any young adult who may feel a little out of the mainstream and wants to be a hero.
    • 4/5
      I completed reading The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin. Excellent writing. Great dialogue between a deaf high school sophomore and a new friend he makes at the *mainstream* public high school. He has formerly attended the Deaf School in his town.The death of a classmate during a field trip, generates a closer relationship between the friends as they use every means at their disposal to help solve the mystery of who killed their acquaintance/fellow student. Computer skills, texting and lip-reading aficionados are involved. Yeah.Recommended for those people interested in high school age young people, especially those who work with them and/or have a child with a disability. (Not every deaf child/person experiences deafness as a disability!) Realistically presented, and upbeat. Good sleuthing by the duo/trio of friends. Treats the age group with respect for their intelligence and creativity.Four Stars.
    • 5/5
      Will Halpin is at the bottom of the social ladder, overweight and deaf. This is his first year in a regular school, where he has transferred from his deaf school. When his class takes a trip to a local coal mine, one of his classmates is pushed down the shaft and killed. Will and his friend Devon team up to solve the mystery.
    • 2/5
      Will Halpin is a social outcast, fat, and deaf. In his first year in a 'real' high school -- mainstreamed -- not a school for the deaf. His disability creates a lot of roadblocks but he manages to make one friend, Devon Smiley and when the star football player, Pat Chambers, is killed during a school field trip to the local coal mines, the boys suspect ...murder!While a promising premise and a good voice, the author tries to do too much. Various subplots are introduced and then dropped... getting a new dog (a 'stray' that just literally wanders into his life... what, no lost and found posters?), Will's crush on Leigha (a fateful letter written, delivered, never acknowledged), Will's flirtation with the deaf-signing cop, etc.Will's voice is good -- self-effacing and humorous -- but without the 'gift' of dialogue, the author stretches to include IMing and emails which, at times, seem stilted and unreal (would a kid really text "I apologize for the oversight"?) Most troublesome for this reader, the moral compass of the book seemed askew. Will and Devin are routinely bullied (does this stuff really still go on? And where are the adults?) Will blithely rips off his Internet access, hacks his Dad's password, tears down a street sign, lies during a police interrogation, and casts a sexy eye on various adult females.... It was this moral disconnect that ultimately 'killed' the book for this reader. Too bad.
    • 3/5
      It wasn't a terrible book but it wasn't amazing either! The biggest problem with the book is the like-abilty of the main character. He was not like-able or endearing to me in any way. Too angsty by far! I hate forcing myself to read a book but this was a book club donation so I muddled through.
    • 4/5
      Will “Hamburger” Halpin has made a difficult choice to leave the deaf school, where he had friends and understood everything, to go to the local public school, where teachers can’t communicate effectively, and he is bullied by everyone from the quarterback to the calculus teacher. Still, he’s determined to learn to navigate the world of the hearing, especially after he finally makes a friend: the only kid lower on the social totem pole than himself. Still, Devon Smiley is an engaging guy, and he even tries to learn sign language. Reluctantly, Will begins making a friend.Then a field trip to a local coal mine has disastrous results: the most popular kid in school, Pat Chambers, is pushed to his death, and no one knows who the pusher is. Will and Devon team up, and with the help of Will’s ex-girlfriend, Ebony, try to find the murderer. Is it Leigha Pennington, class beauty and Will’s hopeless crush? Or perhaps Jimmy Porkrinds, the terminally stoned bus driver? Or maybe Miss Prefontaine, the well-endowed calculus teacher, who is rumored to have been a little too concerned about Pat Chambers’s academic success. In working to solve the mystery, Will stumbles onto an ancestor who seems a little to identical to him to be real--another deaf Will Halpin. Is it a crazy coincidence, or something more?Told with wit and biting sardonicism, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin will keep kids reading. The point of view is novel, and although Berk himself isn’t deaf, he clearly worked to learn about deaf culture. Will and Devon are engaging characters, with Will as a sarcastic but big-hearted loner and Devon as a overly enthusiastic dork. Unfortunately, these two are the only fully-drawn characters; the rest are little more than cardboard cutouts. Will’s parents, especially, are little more than “distant parent” caricatures, which makes it hard to care about Will’s relationship with them, or the inevitable reconciliation. Additionally, although this book is meant as a satire, there are some pretty heavy issues sprinkled throughout: teenage pregnancy, illicit liaisons between teachers and students, and parental abuse are all part of the landscape, but the book seems stuck in kind of an in-between. Either Berk needed to treat the subjects a little more seriously, or he needed to go further and really make them ridiculous (probably rendering this a book for adults, not teens). As it is, you think you’re reading a funny book and then blam, a teen girl is pregnant and being pressured to have an abortion, and then the story moves on. It’s disconcerting as an adult reader; I can only imagine that it would be confusing as a teen.Still this is a valuable book for students because it provides them the opportunity to see the world from a different point of view, one that is too little used. I also appreciated that this book used the first-person present tense POV for a reason--sign language has no past tense, so it makes sense that Will would only use the present tense. I’ve grown weary that YA books have a seeming addiction to the first-person present tense, but here it actually enhances the story. It would be a great book for discussion for a lot of reasons, including the seemingly light treatment of weighty issues. Those weighty issues, however, make this book appropriate for middle to older teens; I wouldn’t recommend this to middle school kids.For grades 10 and up.
    • 5/5
      Will Halpin is at the bottom of the social ladder, overweight and deaf. This is his first year in a regular school, where he has transferred from his deaf school. When his class takes a trip to a local coal mine, one of his classmates is pushed down the shaft and killed. Will and his friend Devon team up to solve the mystery.
    • 4/5
      if you are looking for a really fun and quirky YA mystery with dorks abound, least of all a deaf narrator, then this is the book for you. i had a lot of good laughs over this one and it was a great, quick weekend read.Will Halpin is definitely not your normal boy. first of all, he’s deaf, but he’s also very intelligent, can read lips with great accuracy and is stubborn enough to want to leave his specialized deaf school to go to the local public high school. this forces him into the unusual position of being an outcast from both communities and he takes it all in stride with his great sense of humor and quick wit. when the local high school celebrity jock is mysteriously killed during a school field trip, Will and his unlikely group of friends, his deaf ex-girlfriend Ebony and Devon, another social outcast who has a “dumb ponytail” and “smells faintly of cheese”, do everything they can to find out whodunnit."The Smileywagon pulls up to Ebony’s house. She is standing out front waiting for us, basically bouncing on her toes with excitement. Devon looks at her and then me and then her. He mouths, “She’s black.” I palm my cheek and act schocked… Devon still seems a little flustered by her blackitude. (Wasn’t the fact that her name is Ebony some sort of clue, Frank?) He obviously panics as he tries to remember the signs he had learned for the occasion. Then he signs, “Good morning! I am very happy to have us with you.” Nice try, Dev."the best part of this book for me, hands down, was the ability to witness high school life from the perspective of Will. with his snarky sense of humor and witty tongue, the reader can watch the drama, suspense and hilarity from the sidelines. from the “soud-discriminatory-bell” to the social order of the high school was constantly under Will and Devon’s scrutiny and their cynicism and sarcasm made for some hilarious narrative. through Will’s notebook doodling and text chat conversations, as well as some really great internal monologues, the pages turned one after another with ease.the writing was simple, suitable for age 12 and up (or so), but the plot and story were deep enough to keep me entertained as an adult. it wasn’t the richest YA novel i’ve ever read, but it was definitely highly entertaining and worth the read. the mystery was a tad predictable, but everything else in between was refreshingly different and made up for it.if you liked Nancy Drew and/or The Hardy Boys when you were a kid and are looking for something similar, but current, or you just like a light YA read from time to time, i’d definitely recommend The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin.
    • 3/5
      From reading his blog and following him on Twitter, I was expecting Josh Berk’s book to be funny and amusing. It was, in fact, funnier and more amusing than I thought it would be. Berk is like that guy in, oh, let’s say, your government class who, no matter what he was talking about, managed to infuse it with The Funny.This is a quick read, but don’t think that means that it’s predictable. Will and Devon, with the help of Will’s ex-“girlfriend” Ebony, actually manage to uncover clues that the police have missed. Likely? I don’t know. Entertaining? Definitely. Through an anonymous (and hilariously written) tip to the police, the guys turn the police investigation on it's head. The fact that almost every character in the book is a suspect makes following the clues fun. And I love the idea that it's actually because of, rather than despite, his deafness that Will figures out a lot of what he does.But what I really like about this book is that, even though it’s full of humor, it’s not just superficial entertainment. Through a history assignment, Will discovers a family connection to the coal mines in town, and wonders how he’s never heard this part of his past. It forces him to see another side of his parents, one he didn’t expect. But it's not mushy; dudes needn't fear they'll go soft. I told my husband to recommend the book to his 7th grade students, both male and female, and for the record, I don't do that very often.I’m always excited to find new authors with a unique voice, and Josh Berk is definitely one of them. I'll definitely be picking up his future works.
    • 5/5
      Will Halpin, the first-person narrator of this book, decides to leave the deaf school he has always attended to escape deaf politics (more on that later). This novel begins with his first day of school at the local high school, where he is mainstreamed as the only deaf student. Quickly finding himself as an outsider (not only is he deaf, he is also overweight), Will’s only friend at school is pony-tailed Devon Smiley who has a penchant for nerdily accurate grammar. Will and Devon communicate with each other via finger-spelling (this is mostly all Devon knows, while Will himself is fluent in sign language), writing notes, and much instant-messaging between each other. In fact, the novel’s title comes from Will’s screen name, HamburgerHalpin.Don’t assume that this is a “problem novel”. Although Will and his friend Devon both often have to face derision by most of their classmates and some of their teachers, there is no long, deep throes of self-pity. Will never hesistates to call it as he sees it, and much of this novel reflects his biting humor. When a classmate is murdered, Will and Devon decide to figure out who did it, and give each other code names based on Hardy Boys characters. They also bring in Will’s ex-girlfriend-but-still-a-friend, Ebony, to help. This “Odd Squad” work together, facing lots of close calls, to finally solve the mystery.There was a lot I liked about this book. The humor was one thing. Will talks about his experiences being deaf, but without either angry diatribes or overly technical talk; both of which might lose the interest of an YA reader. The characters (mostly high school students) are ones we all know, or knew, in high school: the jocks, the representatives of the popular crowd, the kids on the sidelines.Of course, being deaf myself, I paid extra close attention to all the references regarding deafness and deaf culture. In my opinion, author Josh Berk has really done his homework, and passes the test. Will Halpin refers to deaf politics at the deaf school he previously attended (incidentally, Will lives in Eastern Pennsylvania; the setting for this story). Will did not want to take part of the “us versus them” thinking at the deaf school, but was transferring to a mainstreamed school really a better alternative? I must say again that I really enjoyed the humor in this book. While I’m not as funny as Will, I have some deaf friends who share the same type of humor as he does; and reading this book sort of brought me back into high school memories. To give you an idea of Will’s tone of voice– and examples of how Will explains deaf culture and deafness — I will pull some quotes from the book.While Will is sitting in the cafeteria, trying to understand anything, or anyone, around him:“It can be really overwhelming for a lip-reader to be in such a hive-like atmosphere. See, I can’t turn off my ability to read lips, so it is like “hearing” a thousand conversations at once…..……It’s like watching TV while someone else works the remote. No, better yet: imagine yourself sitting in a room with with a hundred TVs turned up loud while you whirl around on a Sit & Spin at a dizzying speed, trying to follow the plot. The only way not to totally lose my head is to intently focus on one person and — here’s the trick — not get caught. Most folks aren’t too keen on having a big deaf fatty eyeballing them. I’d love to be wrong about this, but it is unlikely”.About his ex-girlfriend Ebony and deaf politics:“Ebony is a lot like me. At first glance you might not think so, since she’s black and really cute, and I’m, well, not. But we both grew up with “problems with our ears” but could hear somewhat for most of our early lives. (That’s how come I can read lips and write so well.) But Ebony is sort of a political deaf person who agrees with a lot of “prelingually” deaf people. These people usually have sign language as a first language and sometimes don’t learn English at all. (And, yes, sign language is a totally different language from English with its own grammar and everything. Technically, I’m bilingual, which is cool.) …”Will says that he does have a lot in common with deaf people with opinions like Ebony’s, but he adds “but with me that’s not part of some grand political stance”.Mainstreaming for deaf students have increasingly become more common in the recent past. Many deaf schools have faced dwindling attendance (some have even had to close) – in addition to mainstreaming, another reason is a continuous decline of childhood deafness. Therefore, I would think that most of today’s hearing-impaired adolescents will be able to identify to some degree with Will. However, I hope that most adolescents will read this book; deaf or not. I strongly recommend that school and city libraries add this book to their collections. I think my only complaint with this book is that I wish Ebony’s character figured more into the story. She doesn’t really appear until the last third of the book. Overall, I feel this is an excellent read.