Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, by John Grisham
By John Schwartz
Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer. John Grisham's latest is a legal thriller for young readers.
Theo Boone is a kid, just 13 years old, but everyone around Strattenburg says he knows more about the law than some of the lawyers in town. The ability he comes by naturally: both of his parents are attorneys. Theo's ardent desire for a career in the law, however, is more of an oddity. As his uncle says, "Most kids dream of being a policeman, or a fireman, or a great athlete or actor. I've never seen one so taken with the idea of being a lawyer."
The best Theo can come up with as an answer is "Everybody's gotta be something," but there's something more ticking inside of this kid, whose screen name is TBOONEESQ and who named his dog Judge. He's a Ferris Bueller whose idea of a day off involves cutting classes so he can slip into the courthouse and watch a trial.
In my middle school, Theo would have been rewarded for his lawyerly passion by getting pounded each day after classes. Instead, because this is a work of fiction, everybody comes to him for advice. The school secretary's brother has been hauled in for drunk driving. A buddy's parents might lose their home. A possible future girlfriend is going through the misery of a child custody hearing in her parents' divorce. Theo listens, taps a few keys on his laptop to find court records. Gives counsel --- which he, wisely, does not charge for, but which is generally sound -- and referrals to licensed practitioners in the needed specialty.
So when a big murder trial comes to Strattenburg, it's inevitable that Theo will end up right in the middle of it.
This is the set-up for "Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer," the first young adult novel from John Grisham. Like everything else Grisham writes, it will almost certainly be a bestseller. But let's not be churlish about Grisham's Midas touch -- he's trying to explain the world of law to kids who otherwise might only know the courtroom from television. And Grisham wants you to know that TV gets it wrong, as Theo tells his classmates who will attend the first day of the murder trial with him:
"For those of you who watch a lot of television, don’t' expect fireworks. A real trial is very different, and not nearly as exciting. There are no surprise witnesses, no dramatic confessions, no fistfights between the lawyers." And, he tells them, with more than a bit of Grisham's teachy streak, very few people at trial are found not guilty: "About eighty percent of those indicted for murder eventually plead guilty, because they are in fact guilty. The other twenty percent go to trial, and ninety percent of those are found guilty."
This tendency to rattle off such facts in the way that kids might know a favorite pitcher's stats can be annoying, but it serves Grisham's purpose of writing a novel that serves as a primer on the law. He competently lays out the trial of Peter Duffy for the murder of his wife, Myra. The evidence against him is circumstantial, and the presumption of innocence appears to be weighing in his favor.
Grisham ends the story abruptly, and in a way that many young readers might find unsatisfying. But the story moves, after a rather slow start, and the pages seem to turn themselves. Think of it as your teenager's first airplane read, a rough-edged legal thriller that tries to teach young readers about the law while entertaining them. The cliffhanger, then, suggests that Grisham sees Theo as a franchise of books and movies. If he can get young readers excited about justice, he's doing good even while doing very, very well.
John Schwartz is the Legal Correspondent for the New York Times and the author of Short: Walking Tall When You're Not Tall At All.
