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The War on Science Goes Batshit
Year
2013
Language
ENGLISH
Publication Information
BookBaby
Summary
In The War on Science Goes Batshit, author Allen J. Woppert delivers an enthralling, entertaining story of fiction that is both controversial and endearing. The story deeply explores the ongoing war between proponents of the religious doctrine of intelligent design and proponents of the scientific laws of evolution; at the same time it presents a compelling story of ordinary and extraordinary teens coming of age and encountering new situations like high school dynamics, bullying, insecurities in friendship, and first love. The story's main character and narrator, fourteen-year-old boy genius Timothy Thompson, is a freshman at Omar L. Batshit (pronounced baht-SHEET) High School in Batshit, Illinois. His life totally changes one day when he challenges his biology teacher, Mrs. Barker, for attempting to introduce and teach intelligent design as science. Timothy is a science buff and his mom is a lawyer, so the two of them join forces to stop Mrs. Barker from teaching religion in a public school, which is prohibited by the First Amendment. Though they succeed in their efforts, Timothy's feelings of triumph are short-lived. No sooner than the battle between Timothy and Mrs. Barker ends, Timothy is pitted against almost the entire Batshit community. Timothy's encounter with Mrs. Barker is perceived by many as anti-Christian, and Timothy is considered Batshit's very own anti-Christ. He is subjected to hatred, bullying, and seditious plots, targeted not only by fellow students but also by his gym teacher, Mr. Braun. Luckily, Timothy has like-minded friends to whom he can turn for comfort and help, including Megan Chow, whom Timothy has vowed to make his girlfriend by the end of the school year. Timothy's friends are science geeks, just like him, and together they plan a lecture series to teach the "real science" that Mrs. Barker won't teach. With the clandestine support of the school's principal and the more overt support of the school librarian, Timothy and his band of geeks continue to plan the lecture series, while, at the same time, Timothy's antagonists continue to work against him. He gets help from another unexpected source: Mike Petersson, the school's star football player and self-described "dumb jock." The boys become friends while Timothy is tutoring Mike, and Mike steps up to act as Timothy's bodyguard. But Timothy eventually finds himself in a life-threatening situation where not even a big, burly bodyguard like Mike can help him. At that crucial moment in the story, Timothy laments, "Here I am, standing on the brightly lit stage of a darkened and empty auditorium, about to die. My only hope for survival is lying on her belly at my feet. And although it's not my entire life that's flashing in front of my eyes, the events that got me here are doing just that." As Timothy's life hangs on the line, readers will hang on Woppert's every word to learn the fate of Batshit's besieged boy genius. Will he survive this battle and go on to win the war? Or will he become a casualty of the very thing he started?