Waterloo author Shelagh Lynne Supeene’s debut children’s novel My Name Is Mitch takes an affably humorous, discerning look at some of the problems of growing up: classroom bullies, learning difficulties, and family conflict. Her novel will be especially appealing to kids like Mitch, the sixth-grader narrator, who knows only too well what it’s like to be the designated target of the class bully.

Supeene has created 11-year-old Mitch with comic flair and truth. He radiates the qualities of a real kid: a keen observer with a snappy sense of gallows humour, he’s smarter than he realizes. His good-natured narration, studded with perceptive, amusing comments, is a believable muddle of understanding and bafflement. Supeene’s clear, engaging prose and accessible short chapters should draw in readers as reluctant as Mitch is himself.

Mitch, short for his age and a problem reader, is nicknamed “midget-brain” by Philip the class bully. Philip’s scornful razzing and tormenting heats up after Mitch is ordered to attend a special-ed reading class where he has to deal with the mortification of being partnered with a first-grader whose reading ability is way beyond his. Until this year, Mitch’s family life has been his buffer zone – with the exception of his grumpy grandpa who has never forgiven Mitch’s mother for having a baby out of wedlock at age 16. But that supportive family harmony is threatened by the reappearance of his birth father, called “The Creep” by Mitch’s tough-minded, loving mother.

Unfortunately, Supeene’s story loses its comic astringency and tension in the last third of the novel. Every edge of conflict is too easily smoothed over in a warm, fuzzy fantasy of fulfilment that doesn’t do justice to the knottiness of Mitch and his life.