Lions & Liars is a children's novel by Kate Beasley. The book was published on June 5th, 2018.
Frederick Fredrickson is, according to his Popularity Food Chain outlook on life, a flea. That basically means that he's at the bottom rung of the popularity food chain. But he doesn't want to be. He wants to be one of the popular kids. Someone everyone wants to be friends with, someone people notice when he's not around, someone people like.
One day, the labour day weekend cruise he was looking forward to is cancelled by a Class 5 hurricane, "Hurricane Hernando", so instead, Frederick goes to Joel's birthday party, much to his chagrin because of how big a deal he made the cruise. While there, Joel and Raj show Frederick Joel's dad's boat, mainly to mock him about his missed cruise. After getting in to try and get the upper hand, Frederick gets in the boat, and accidentally sends the boat sailing away.
The morning after, Frederick finds he's drifted down river to Camp Ohmigoshee, which he later discovers is a weekend-long disciplinary camp. While there, he's mistaken for the yet-to-arrive Dashiell Blackwood, which he decides to roll with, seeing the camp as an opportunity to have a fresh start.
Frederick soon finds himself with a circle of friends in his fellow cabin mates of cabin 13, who actually see him as one of them. Specs, who got in for snapping someone's glasses in two. The Professor, who always has his nose in a book. Nosebleed, who seems pretty vulnerable to that. And Ant Bite, a little permanently-scowling guy who kicked a rock at one of the other groups. But how long will Frederick be able to keep up the ruse?
Lions & Liars contains examples of:
- Alliterative Name:
- The protagonist's name is Frederick Frederickson.
- Then there's Hurricane Hernando.
- Dodgeball Is Hell: Zigzagged. The book begins with Frederick being slammed in the face with a dodgeball so hard, his nose swells up. Subverted during the game at Camp Omigoshee, though, where Frederick not only outlasts most of the other kids, but manages to win the game for his team.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Eric fills this role at Camp Omigoshee.
- Mistaken Identity: When Frederick shows up at Camp Omigoshee, everyone mistakes him for a late kid name Dashiell Blackwood. He decides to go with it so he can get a fresh start. Then the real Dashiell is brought to camp the next day.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Frederick doesn't get out of the boat when it sails away because an alligator was in the water.
- Repetitive Name: The protagonist's name is Frederick Frederickson. Type Classic Classical when the surname is longer that the first name.
- What Are You in For?: The camp 13 kids soon confide in each other why they're in Camp Omigoshee.
- Specs is there for snapping someone's glasses in two.
- The Professor is in there for refusing to sign up for his school's football team, which the school interpereted as him not being a very agreeable person.
- Nosebleed is there because he wants to go to real camp over the summer, and tried Camp Omigoshee as a trial run for the real thing.
- With Friends Like These...: Joel and Raj, Frederick's initial friends, are pretty quick to make fun of Frederick.
