Purge by Sarah Littman
Ages: Young Adult
Scholastic Press: April 2009
Cautions: Bulimia and other eating disorders are graphically depicted

Kiwi Magazine Review:
This authentic chapter book is a really important work. The author’s personal experience with bulimia comes through clearly and genuinely and serves as a very honest and painful ersatz journal of the life of a bulimic who must spend time rehabilitating at a facility for eating disorders. Though this book is fiction, it has no less impact than a memoir may have. The final chapter offers resources and information to those who may suspect an eating disorder.

Product Description
Janie Ryman hates throwing up. So why does she binge eat and then stick her fingers down her throat several times a day? That’s what the doctors and psychiatrists at Golden Slopes hope to help her discover. But first Janie must survive everyday conflicts between the Barfers and the Starvers, attempts by the head psychiatrist to fish painful memories out of her emotional waters, and shifting friendships and alliances among the kids in the ward.

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Big Mouth By Deborah Halverson
Delacorte, 2008
Recommended readers - 10-15 (mostly boys)
Cautions: Bingeing and purging, speed eating contests

Kiwi Bookworm Review:
I think this book would mostly appeal to boys because, well, it’s gross. The first several paragraphs of the first chapter describe, in detail, how it feels to throw up ten hot dogs after a speed-eating contest. This scene is repeated throughout the book because Shermie decides he wants to be an Olympic-level speed eater (primarily hot dogs with the potential to branch out) and trains regularly by jamming hot dogs, ice cream and candy in massive quantities down his throat. Paired with Lucy, his petite on-again, off-again friend and coach, and his friend Gardo, who must regularly make his weight limit for his wrestling team, Shermie spends most of the book talking, thinking, eating or discussing eating. The book is funny in parts, but the author is really dancing between trying to be humorous and trying to send a message about boys having eating disorders, too, so the book falls short of either goal. I did read it from cover to cover because it kept my curiosity high with some middle school boy angst about bullies, lunch room hyjinx and some sort of condiment rivalry.

Publisher’s Synopsis
FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD SHERMIE THUFF is a Big Guy with a Big Dream- to become the most famous competitive eater in the world. But every big dream has to start somewhere, and Shermie’s determined to start his in the spotlight. If he can take first place in Nathan’s World Famous International hot dog eating competition, fame will be his. The catch? The current record is 53-1/2 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes. Shermie’s personal best? Seven. Clearly, Shermie has some training to do. . . . Only, no matter how hard he tries, he can’t get past nine measly wieners. Then, just when Shermie’s about to crack under the pressure, he gets his biggest shake-up of all: news that the 53-1/2 record holder is an itty-bitty, 130-pound guy. So Shermie vows to lose his restrictive Fat Belt the only way he knows how-with the help of Gardo, a weight-cutting fanatic determined to turn Big Shermie into a lean, mean eating-machine.

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