Donuthead

Franklin Delano Donuthead has more problems than his name. He is obsessed with health, safety, and cleanliness. His mother, who is just the opposite, doesn't know what to do with him except to try to get him to play baseball. He is bullied at school and has no friends, except for Gloria, the chief statistician for the National Safety Department, whom Franklin calls at least once a week to discuss all the ways a boy can be injured, maimed, sickened, or killed.

Sarah, the new girl in his class, turns his world upside down. She is everything he is not -- tough, filthy, and illiterate -- and she soon becomes fast friends with Franklin's mother. But Sarah, as Franklin's mother says, has "real problems: she lives in poverty with her abusive father, but dreams of being a figure skater. And Franklin finds himself being drawn very reluctantly into a group of people who are trying to make her dreams come true.