Melonhead — Michael de Guzman

Sidney T. Mellon, Junior's head is round and much too large for his pencil thin body. A cantaloupe comes to mind. So does the name, Melonhead. What chance does he have, looking like this and yo-yoing between divorced parents who aren't up to the job? No wonder he gets on a bus and heads for New York City, "As far away as he could get." So begins a journey of self-discovery that takes him from Seattle to Los Angeles to New York, to a small town in Rhode Island where he confronts his grandmother, who wants nothing to do with him. All Sidney wants is a safe place to be. This was my first novel for young readers. It was published in hardcover by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2002. The paperback and ebook versions are published by the author.