The Best Man

When we meet Archer Magill, he is remembering a time when he was five and suffering through an embarrassing incident at a wedding where he met Lynette, new girl in town, who becomes his best friend. But the heart of the story takes place during Archer’s fifth-grade year. He has a close family and striking maturity, allowing him to truly appreciate strong role models in his architect grandfather, car-restorer father, sophisticated uncle, and, most recently, the first male teacher in the history of his school. All these men are heroic in their own ways, and all teach Archer lessons about loss and what love really means. The book ends with another wedding, more meaningful and less embarrassing for Archer.

Author Richard Peck is a great storyteller and has assembled a great group of well-realized characters who believably suffer through and overcome, for the most part, realistic problems. The story is told in first-person narrative (with a couple of diversions to Lynnette’s point of view) in the voice of Archer. For the most part, it is a believable voice for a very mature fifth-grader. With important themes of anti-bullying, friendship, loss, and love, this is a winner.