It's New! It's Improved! It's Terrible!

by Stephen Manes

When Arnold Schlemp gets the basketball shoes advertised on television he finds that they come with blisters for his feet and the kid from the commercial.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553156829
• ISBN13: 9780553156829
• Release Date: March 1989
• Publisher: Skylark Books
• Length: 98 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.3" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

hysterical! Worth tracking down!!

Oh, why o' why is all the good stuff out of print?!Stephen Manes, author of the extremely popular "Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days!" has written a fantastically funny and poignant tale in "It's New..."Our hero, Arnold Schlemp, is a typical kid. Like many typical kids, he's obsessed with how he looks, and he's convinced that a pair of Helicopter Shoes (promoted by the famous basketball player, Ralph "Helicopter" Jones) will make his life complete. Doors will open for him, the heavens will part and a ray of light will shine down on him if ONLY he could get a pair of those shoes!! One small problem: Helicopter Shoes are ridiculously expensive (is this starting to sound familiar?? Any parent dealt with this same problem??)Well, he DOES get his shoes after much fussing n' fighting and hint dropping, only to find out that they hurt his feet. In a fit of frustration, he hurls one of his poorly-made, expensive shoes at the very TV commercial selling the shoes only to have one of the characters from the commercial COME OUT OF THE TELEVISION!! What happens next is simply hysterical, fast-paced, odd and 100% pure Manes.It's a shame that this book is out of print, because it's as relevant now in 2001 as it was when it was first published in 1989 at the beginning of the Nike shoe craze. The boy who comes out of the TV commercial comes from a world where everyone sells a product, your personal worth is based entirely on the stuff you own and everyone is ecstatically happy about the things they can get. One (of many) small problem: people in the TV commercial world never use money, their stuff is just given to them!As a piece of social satire for young folk, "It's New..." is simply fantastic. It's message of "you are more than the sum of your possessions" is neither overly subtle nor obvious. Just because you see some grinning idiot on TV selling you WhizzoPops doesn't mean A) you need them or B) they're any good for you. This is an important lesson that I think many of our young people are missing today: commercials are brainwashing our children into becoming possession-grubbing little Perfect Consumers. If we all had to deal with some wild commercial person for a few days, I think we too would be a bit more dubious of the claims made on commercials!!"it's New..." is a fast read, weighing in at just under 100 pages. The story is fast-paced and draws the reader in right away. While it's not illustrated like some of Manes's other works and a bit more text heavy, it's still an excellent choice for intermediate readers. Read aloud to younger or less skilled readers, it's a fine example of why one shouldn't believe everything one sees on TV!! Definitely worth the time and energy to track this one down!!