Stupid
Dedicated to the amazing and awesome Parkour community of Calgary.
Martin's been diagnosed with ADHD, but he feels something about his diagnosis isn't right. The Ritalin he's prescribed doesn't seem to make a difference. When Martin’s grades continue to sink no matter how hard he tries, his father writes him off as lazy and just plain stupid. His dad is convinced that Martin needs to focus more on his studies and less on making movies.
One night while filming a movie, after having broken into an old brewery, Martin meets Stick and is introduced to the energetic sport of parkour — free running. While filming Stick’s flips and tricks, Martin begins to see a connection between how his brain interprets the world, all jumbled and out of order, and what the free-runners experience. Camera in hand, Martin sets out to make a video that will show how he perceives the world and maybe get his dad to understand that Martin's real learning disability has never been properly diagnosed.
One night while filming a movie, after having broken into an old brewery, Martin meets Stick and is introduced to the energetic sport of parkour — free running. While filming Stick’s flips and tricks, Martin begins to see a connection between how his brain interprets the world, all jumbled and out of order, and what the free-runners experience. Camera in hand, Martin sets out to make a video that will show how he perceives the world and maybe get his dad to understand that Martin's real learning disability has never been properly diagnosed.
Now Available
Now available in French too! Under the name Olivier.
Awards
Winner - Canadian Children's Book Centre Best Books for Kids & Teens
Shortlisted - Stellar Award - Red Cedar Young Reader's Choice Awards
Shortlisted - Stellar Award - Red Cedar Young Reader's Choice Awards
Reviews
Amie's Book Review Blog - STUPID by Kim Firmston is a Young Adult book that will get you talking.
Canadian Journal of Disability Studies - http://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/321/545
CM magazine Volume XX Number 41 by Karen Boyd
. . . Stupid is an accessible yet richly layered text. I recommend it for the targeted age group, but also hope that educators and parents will read it and consider that “lazy” and “stupid” are often misnomers and never helpful.
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol20/no41/stupid.html
YA Book Blogger
I want to thank Lorimar Sidestreet for this wonderful, if not expensive, opportunity for me. As I have now had to buy many more copies for distribution among different places. Our churches pre-school, yes, I know this is a teen book, but this is a awesome book for parents with children with dyslexia, and this pre-school tends to catch a lot of children with early literacy issues among 3-5 year olds. Also, there is a adult literacy group there as well and so I'm going to have put some copies in the church library for them, this might be the fist time some of them have been told they have dyslexia, so maybe they might want to know more about it and to know the name isn't stupid anymore. It might help them understand some of what they are going through. I know I wish this book had been around when I was a kid it really would have helped, if for no other reason than to know I wasn't the only one.http://trishap00.blogspot.ca/2014/06/stupid.html
Karen Doerksen
. . . Stupid crackles with energy, dragging readers along on a violent, muscles flexed, white-knuckled ride through midnight landscapes and abandoned industrial sites, into the frustration and fragmentation of dyslexia.
http://www.nationalreadingcampaign.ca/childrens-book-review-stupid/http://www.thisisliteracy.ca/teenagers/reviews/1301
Katsmiao BOOKS ARE MY LIFE by Katarina Ortmann
Another great book with an important message told in a powerful story.
This book was a joy to read, even though your heart breaks for what Martin has to go through before he finally figures out what his problem is.
http://katsmiao.com/2014/06/14/stupid-by-kim-firmston/
Bill's Reviews
This has the non stop read of a thriller - a book everyone should read - and great for all kids too - so all can better understand a problem many deal with in their lives.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/920380944?book_show_action=true&page=1
Nancy The book junkie's Reviews
There's a lot of kids like Martin, kids who think they are stupid because they can't live up to the expectations of their parent or simply because they can't get good grades and there's a lot of them who are misdiagnosed or no diagnosed at all. Maybe books like this one can help them get helped or at least help them believe in themselves. It was a really great story about trying to believe in yourself when you think that you're a failure and also about discovering how far you can push yourself and what you're willing to do to continue doing what you love.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/933442479?book_show_action=true&page=1
Tammy Falkner's Reviews
A wonderful, realistic book about kids with real life problems, and a happy resolution. I enjoyed every page, and then I shared it with my 10 year old, who read it in one night. His comment -- "I loved it." So did I.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/950053539?book_show_action=true&page=1
ananka's Reviews
A very enjoyable book and something I could recommend to a high/low reader or anyone.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/941497796?book_show_action=true&page=1
Canadian Journal of Disability Studies - http://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/321/545
CM magazine Volume XX Number 41 by Karen Boyd
. . . Stupid is an accessible yet richly layered text. I recommend it for the targeted age group, but also hope that educators and parents will read it and consider that “lazy” and “stupid” are often misnomers and never helpful.
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol20/no41/stupid.html
YA Book Blogger
I want to thank Lorimar Sidestreet for this wonderful, if not expensive, opportunity for me. As I have now had to buy many more copies for distribution among different places. Our churches pre-school, yes, I know this is a teen book, but this is a awesome book for parents with children with dyslexia, and this pre-school tends to catch a lot of children with early literacy issues among 3-5 year olds. Also, there is a adult literacy group there as well and so I'm going to have put some copies in the church library for them, this might be the fist time some of them have been told they have dyslexia, so maybe they might want to know more about it and to know the name isn't stupid anymore. It might help them understand some of what they are going through. I know I wish this book had been around when I was a kid it really would have helped, if for no other reason than to know I wasn't the only one.http://trishap00.blogspot.ca/2014/06/stupid.html
Karen Doerksen
. . . Stupid crackles with energy, dragging readers along on a violent, muscles flexed, white-knuckled ride through midnight landscapes and abandoned industrial sites, into the frustration and fragmentation of dyslexia.
http://www.nationalreadingcampaign.ca/childrens-book-review-stupid/http://www.thisisliteracy.ca/teenagers/reviews/1301
Katsmiao BOOKS ARE MY LIFE by Katarina Ortmann
Another great book with an important message told in a powerful story.
This book was a joy to read, even though your heart breaks for what Martin has to go through before he finally figures out what his problem is.
http://katsmiao.com/2014/06/14/stupid-by-kim-firmston/
Bill's Reviews
This has the non stop read of a thriller - a book everyone should read - and great for all kids too - so all can better understand a problem many deal with in their lives.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/920380944?book_show_action=true&page=1
Nancy The book junkie's Reviews
There's a lot of kids like Martin, kids who think they are stupid because they can't live up to the expectations of their parent or simply because they can't get good grades and there's a lot of them who are misdiagnosed or no diagnosed at all. Maybe books like this one can help them get helped or at least help them believe in themselves. It was a really great story about trying to believe in yourself when you think that you're a failure and also about discovering how far you can push yourself and what you're willing to do to continue doing what you love.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/933442479?book_show_action=true&page=1
Tammy Falkner's Reviews
A wonderful, realistic book about kids with real life problems, and a happy resolution. I enjoyed every page, and then I shared it with my 10 year old, who read it in one night. His comment -- "I loved it." So did I.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/950053539?book_show_action=true&page=1
ananka's Reviews
A very enjoyable book and something I could recommend to a high/low reader or anyone.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/941497796?book_show_action=true&page=1
An interview about writing Stupid
An excerpt from Stupid:
Stick runs a couple of steps, then stops and waits while I put my camera into its travel bag. If it comes to a choice between getting caught or my camera getting smashed — I’m turning myself in. Besides, I need to breathe. I sling the camera bag so it rides on the back of my hip and has less danger of getting bumped or hit. Stick is darting back and forth. He doesn’t say “hurry up,” but I can tell that’s what he wants. “Come on. The guard is probably heading around the building. Or calling the cops.”
That gets me going.
I follow Stick as we race over the wide expanse of rooftop. It looks like Minecraft up here. There are square buildings on top of larger square buildings with ladders linking them together. Brick walls sport large, ragged holes dripping with pigeon crap. The place stinks of rot. I want to hold my breath, but I’m puffing too hard.
We hit wall after wall as we race. Sometimes we’re going up. Sometimes down. I use the barely clinging ladders. Stick leaps, rolls, and runs. He has to wait for me more than once. Finally we hit our last cliff — a three-foot drop leading to a slanting aluminum roof followed by another fifteen-foot drop onto a loading dock. There is no ladder.
“I can’t,” I say, backing up a few steps.
“You can. Follow me.”
“I don’t do parkour.”
Stick flashes me a wild toothy grin. “Anyone can do parkour.”
“I’m clumsy.”
“Look.” Stick’s pointing beside the ledge of the old loading dock below. What’s left of a frame surrounds it, tarp fabric snapping in the wind. “Slide down the roof and climb down that. I can hold your camera.”
I shake my head. No one holds my camera. “It’s okay. I can do it.”
Stick claps my shoulder. “I’ll go down first and spot you. You’re going to be fine.” He launches himself off the building and slides two footed down the ramp before leaping, spinning his body in a 160-degree turn, grabbing the frame with both hands and swinging onto the platform below. He looks up, grinning. “Come on.”
I sit down. Carefully lower my feet onto the angled siding. They slip. I’m going to die. “I can’t,” I call.
“You can,” Stick calls back. His eyes dart sideways. There’s a bouncing circle of light in the distance.
The security guard.
I push off the roof, land with butt slipping on the metal, rubber-soled shoes making poor brakes. My feet slide over the edge before I can get anywhere near a stop. I roll on my belly to halt my momentum, camera banging. I wince, and not because my thigh scrapes the edge of the metal, and my fingers smash the rusting frame in a panicked attempt to find safety.
The metal barely has time to complain before I’m down beside Stick and leaping off the loading dock onto the concrete.
“I see you!” the guard yells, almost caught up. “I can ID you!”
The train crossing, a quarter of a block away, starts dinging. Flashing yellow lights shine brightly in the night, alternating on the big, wooden Xs. Stick grabs my arm and yanks me toward it. Thirty feet down the track, the locomotive’s headlights are blinding. Stick doesn’t stop. He drags me past the barriers and right onto the track, the train bearing down on us.
In the push of air pressure coming off the engine I can’t hear the shriek of the breaks, the howling of the horn, or even my own screams. All noises become static as we leap to safety, the train blasting by inches from our backs. Us on one side — the guard on the other.
“Keep moving,” Stick says. He gives me another tug, taking off at an escape pace.
By the time we hit Starbucks, a good five blocks away, my legs are Jell-O. My side is cramped and burning. My throat, dry from huffing, sticks to itself and makes it impossible to swallow. I go in and buy two overpriced waters and hand one to Stick as we sink to the curb outside the door and down them in one go.
“See, you can do parkour,” Stick says, wiping spilled water from his tan face.
“It was luck,” I say. “That’s all. Blind luck.”
Stick laughs, pushing his fingers through his black hair. “Yeah. Maybe. Your camera okay?”
I take it out and give it a once-over, checking through the last bit of footage. “It’s fine.”
Stick shakes his head. “I still can’t believe that shot you got of me. You’re good. You on Facebook?” I nod. He pulls out his phone and sends me a friend request right there.
“You should join us at the park. We could teach you some basic parkour stuff. You might like it.”
I shake my head. “Naw. I’m more into film.”
“Then,” Stick says, “You could film us.”
I nod. “Yeah. That would be fun.”
“Great. I’ll let you know when we’re meeting up.” He stands and stretches. “I better get home. Nice meeting you, Martin.” Stick shakes my hand again, then sets off at a run, leaping over a bench that gets in his way.
I limp toward home too. My palms on fire and legs complaining about the sudden physical activity. Really, I want to rest more. Maybe have a coffee or two. But I have lots of footage to go through, and I know if I stay out any longer, Dad is going to flip.
If he hasn’t already.
That gets me going.
I follow Stick as we race over the wide expanse of rooftop. It looks like Minecraft up here. There are square buildings on top of larger square buildings with ladders linking them together. Brick walls sport large, ragged holes dripping with pigeon crap. The place stinks of rot. I want to hold my breath, but I’m puffing too hard.
We hit wall after wall as we race. Sometimes we’re going up. Sometimes down. I use the barely clinging ladders. Stick leaps, rolls, and runs. He has to wait for me more than once. Finally we hit our last cliff — a three-foot drop leading to a slanting aluminum roof followed by another fifteen-foot drop onto a loading dock. There is no ladder.
“I can’t,” I say, backing up a few steps.
“You can. Follow me.”
“I don’t do parkour.”
Stick flashes me a wild toothy grin. “Anyone can do parkour.”
“I’m clumsy.”
“Look.” Stick’s pointing beside the ledge of the old loading dock below. What’s left of a frame surrounds it, tarp fabric snapping in the wind. “Slide down the roof and climb down that. I can hold your camera.”
I shake my head. No one holds my camera. “It’s okay. I can do it.”
Stick claps my shoulder. “I’ll go down first and spot you. You’re going to be fine.” He launches himself off the building and slides two footed down the ramp before leaping, spinning his body in a 160-degree turn, grabbing the frame with both hands and swinging onto the platform below. He looks up, grinning. “Come on.”
I sit down. Carefully lower my feet onto the angled siding. They slip. I’m going to die. “I can’t,” I call.
“You can,” Stick calls back. His eyes dart sideways. There’s a bouncing circle of light in the distance.
The security guard.
I push off the roof, land with butt slipping on the metal, rubber-soled shoes making poor brakes. My feet slide over the edge before I can get anywhere near a stop. I roll on my belly to halt my momentum, camera banging. I wince, and not because my thigh scrapes the edge of the metal, and my fingers smash the rusting frame in a panicked attempt to find safety.
The metal barely has time to complain before I’m down beside Stick and leaping off the loading dock onto the concrete.
“I see you!” the guard yells, almost caught up. “I can ID you!”
The train crossing, a quarter of a block away, starts dinging. Flashing yellow lights shine brightly in the night, alternating on the big, wooden Xs. Stick grabs my arm and yanks me toward it. Thirty feet down the track, the locomotive’s headlights are blinding. Stick doesn’t stop. He drags me past the barriers and right onto the track, the train bearing down on us.
In the push of air pressure coming off the engine I can’t hear the shriek of the breaks, the howling of the horn, or even my own screams. All noises become static as we leap to safety, the train blasting by inches from our backs. Us on one side — the guard on the other.
“Keep moving,” Stick says. He gives me another tug, taking off at an escape pace.
By the time we hit Starbucks, a good five blocks away, my legs are Jell-O. My side is cramped and burning. My throat, dry from huffing, sticks to itself and makes it impossible to swallow. I go in and buy two overpriced waters and hand one to Stick as we sink to the curb outside the door and down them in one go.
“See, you can do parkour,” Stick says, wiping spilled water from his tan face.
“It was luck,” I say. “That’s all. Blind luck.”
Stick laughs, pushing his fingers through his black hair. “Yeah. Maybe. Your camera okay?”
I take it out and give it a once-over, checking through the last bit of footage. “It’s fine.”
Stick shakes his head. “I still can’t believe that shot you got of me. You’re good. You on Facebook?” I nod. He pulls out his phone and sends me a friend request right there.
“You should join us at the park. We could teach you some basic parkour stuff. You might like it.”
I shake my head. “Naw. I’m more into film.”
“Then,” Stick says, “You could film us.”
I nod. “Yeah. That would be fun.”
“Great. I’ll let you know when we’re meeting up.” He stands and stretches. “I better get home. Nice meeting you, Martin.” Stick shakes my hand again, then sets off at a run, leaping over a bench that gets in his way.
I limp toward home too. My palms on fire and legs complaining about the sudden physical activity. Really, I want to rest more. Maybe have a coffee or two. But I have lots of footage to go through, and I know if I stay out any longer, Dad is going to flip.
If he hasn’t already.