On the whole, this was an interesting idea that kind of fell flat at the end. Oscar is clumsy and falls a lot, but he ends up stumbling upon a mysteriously abandoned train car in the woods with no train tracks anywhere in sight, and inside he discovers an elixir that allows him to mysteriously defy gravity, which he believes will solve his problems forever. Predictably, that is anything but true. He is in for a lot of headaches thanks to the gravity repellent he finds. He becomes possessive of the train car and the repellent almost instantly, and he utilizes the limited supply of repellent unwisely. Injuries, but thankfully no deaths, occur as a result of his actions, and he finds a bit of self-confidence along the way as he protects his newfound treasures.

About the ending, he confronts a bully, handles it poorly, puts the bully's life in jeopardy, and upon finding him and and trying to smooth things over, compromises the gravity repellent to protect himself from punishment. Yet, when things wrap up, we're supposed to trust that the bully won't do anything completely egregious with the repellent because he seems to be a bit more forthcoming with his feelings after Oscar yells at him that he must stop calling him a loser. Readers will have to decide on their own if Oscar did enough to head off a disaster, or if he is the catalyst behind one that's on its way. He never reveals the discovery of the gravity repellent to an adult, even when circumstances are getting out of hand. The end kind of galled me. I get what the author was hoping I would believe about the conclusion, and it certainly feels like the ending is designed to invite more books, but this one left me feeling like the most important part of Oscar's story is what's about to happen next, and that just wasn't included in the book.

Oscar is a klutz. He trips over things, knocks things over, and spills things. He is the kind of kid that all kids can relate to and even us adults. He is bullied by the bigger kids and has one really good friend (Asha) who doesn't care if he's a klutz.
This was such a cute book. I really enjoyed reading it to my kids.