Going Bovine by Libba Bray 2010 Printz Award Winner
Of What Happens When Susan the Teen Librarian Intern Reviews This Book
Cameron Smith is sixteen. He’s in high school, and after he has several hallucinations, (and thinks that he’s seeing random fire giants all over the place who have come to Earth to attack him) he’s given some bad news. Not just bad news that normal people eventually recover from…but REALLY bad news. He’s going to die. Of Mad Cow Disease. Soon. The worst part? There’s no cure. So, instead of being stuck in high school, Cameron gets stuck in the hospital. It’s incredibly boring and all he does is sit and watch bad TV , and think about the one moment in life when he was totally happy-when he was five and went on the “It’s a small world” ride at Disney World.
Then, out of nowhere an angel shows up in Cameron’s life. She’s not just any angel, she’s Dulcie. She’s the one who’s been showing up in Cameron’s hallucinations along with the fire giants, a pink haired punk angel who spray paints messages on her wings, leaves feathers everywhere and eats sugar nonstop. Now, she’s standing (or floating in his room because she has wings) and telling him that there’s a cure for his disease as long as he can go on a mission to find it. “How do I find it?”,he wants to know. Dulcie tells him to look for anything random, because she says, “in a world like this one, only the random makes sense.” Dulcie tells him has to leave immediately. He has to find the mysterious “Dr. X,” who has apparently disappeared into another dimension due to a botched time-travel experiment. “Dr. X” is the only one who can cure Cameron. So, Cameron decides if he wants to live, he better escape from the hospital and start looking for this guy. Dulcie tells he can’t go alone, so he convinces his hospital roommate Gonzo to come along. (This takes A TON of convincing on Cameron’s part, because Gonzo terrified he’s going to die in the hospital or die if he leaves). Cameron and Gonzo begin a wild road trip in search of “Dr. X”. They have no clues to his whereabouts, only a watch that Dulcie has given Cameron, which shows each of the themed “land” areas of Disney World. Cameron knows he’s running out of time when the “lands” (like Tomorrow Land) start fading and disappearing. Suddenly Cameron realizes that his mission is to get to Disney World, that must be where “Dr. X” is hiding out.
On Cameron and Gonzo’s wild road trip, they take a bus to New Orleans and meet a jazz legend, buy a tricked-out used Cadillac in Tennessee and steal/rescue a yard gnome named Balder…who talks! The three of them continue the search for “Dr. X” at the Church of Everlasting Happiness and Snack ‘N Bowl (church/slash bowling alley/hippy hang-out), a small Georgia town with a wishing tree, the set of “Parker Day’s Party House” in Florida, an alternate universe, witness a Copenhagen Interpretation concert and finally, make it to Disney World, the place where Cameron was so happy as a little kid. Then, Cameron starts seeing the fire giants again…and a bunch of doors. So many doors he’s not sure which ones to open, so he opens them all. Cameron suddenly understands what the doors mean, and as he keeps looking for the right one, the one that will take him to “Dr.X” and lead him to a cure for his disease, he realizes that this trip really was the road trip of his life and he really did live by “looking for the random.” Who knew that Cameron could discover the true meaning of life when he thought he didn’t have any more time to keep living? Read Going Bovine by Libba Bray, the 2010 Printz Award Winner to find out!
