Kid Nerd

What is a nerd? A kid who gets a 99 on a school test...and cries. Someone with a genetic inability to catch any kind of ball. A bully magnet. I, myself, straddled the nerd/jock fence as a kid (star debater, bench-sitting back-up quarterback) and as a 10th-grader was routinely tortured by a 12th-grade bully named Teddy Delzine (Teddy, if you're reading this, I'm a mature adult now and am more than ready to bury the hatchet, preferably right between your beady, wienerhead eyes.) Director Shereen Jerrett's homage to nerds combines interviews with former nerds who went on to become successful adults (including Josh Weinstein, executive producer for The Simpsons and Penn Jillete of Penn and Teller) together with hilarious excerpts from a '40s film on social etiquette for teens. Viewers will hear horror stories that would curdle Clive Barker's blood, such as the one about the nerd who put a love letter into a classmate's desk: she read it aloud to the other students when the teacher left for a short break. Or the story of a woman who was nominated for prom queen as a joke. Or the boy who was beat up by a neighborhood kid while his Dad took pictures. Of course, the nerds have mostly good memories of the school library--every former nerd (and I suspect this includes some librarians) knows that the library is one of the best hiding places in the world. Touching, funny, and sometimes painful, Kid Nerd is enthusiastically recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)