Geeks, nerds, and other adolescent outcasts take heed. There is light at the end of the incessant teasing and wallflower status you have endured. Wisenheimer, an entertaining comingof- age story by Mark Oppenheimer, will empower all those teens and pre-teens who feel as if there is no place for them in society. For Oppenheimer, salvation arrived in the form of the debate club, the one place where his preternatural gift for oratory and intellectual prowess was appreciated and rewarded.
For Oppenheimer, as for many adolescents, school was an emotional and intellectual wasteland. He did not hesitate to correct his teachers’ grammar when he deemed it appropriate, feeling and acting as if he possessed the superior intellect in the classroom. Such behavior hardly ingratiated him with the faculty. Socially, he was a misfit — not cool, nor entirely accepted by the other nerds. His luck turned when his parents enrolled him in a school that had a debate team. He won his first debate and embarked on a journey of winning against older and more seasoned debaters. Oppenheimer discovered satisfaction, fulfillment, and equally important, validation in the world of debate. He found likeminded teenagers who shared his passion for ideas and oral expression. Debate allowed him to achieve the pinnacle of any adolescent: the other kids thought he was cool, and he even won the heart of the pretty popular girl.
Written in a pithy and engaging style, Wisenheimer will make readers chuckle, laugh out loud, and even tear up at times. There are few among us who have not experienced the feeling of being different or misunderstood at some point in our lives. Oppenheimer has the uncanny, seemingly effortless, ability to make such situations seem almost comically absurd.