TOWER — For someone who depends on purchases by school libraries and classroom teachers, the topic of William “Bill” Durbin’s latest young adult novel is a bit risky.
He told the Timberjay he wasn’t sure if he could sell this book to his previous publishers because many of them also publish state tests. So, before even asking them, he chose to self-publish, and he is hopeful that teachers and librarians will pick up his book and recommend it to their students.
The book is his first foray into contemporary young adult fiction, though, like his earlier historical fiction titles, is based on actual history, but this history is current and still unfolding. And once again he chooses to tell history through the eyes of young teenagers.
The topic was inspired after a trip to a series of a dozen schools in south Florida, where he was discussing his novel “El Lector,” which was set in a cigar factory in Florida, where a reader, the “Lector,” entertained the laborers as they rolled cigars, reading from newspapers and books. The book also discussed labor history, and how the introduction of the radio brought other changes.
“I was walking down the hallway, and we passed a class of third graders. Half the students were bawling,” Durbin said. The teacher explained to Durbin that any student who failed the test, even those whose first language wasn’t English, would be held back a year. Classroom grades or teacher observations couldn’t change the result of this one test, and the stress on both the students and teachers was evident.
When Durbin’s wife, Barbara, a longtime third-grade teacher in Minnesota, heard this story, she told Bill he needed to use it as a topic for a new book. She had her own experience with standardized tests. She felt they were damaging to her students and even compared them with child abuse.
Durbin, a former teacher himself, first resisted the idea. As he explained in the book’s forward, he was hopeful these types of tests would soon change and focus on the joy of reading, thinking, and learning.
“Boy, was I wrong,” he wrote, and after “many false starts and lots of tinkering,” the idea for “Bubble Test Blues” was born.
The topic, explored through the point of view of a group of eighth-grade friends at a school in Florida, focuses on high-stakes testing. The stakes of these tests were also high for schools; those with too many failing students, are financially punished while schools with high numbers of passing students, usually because they are from wealthier areas, receive financial rewards. Teachers who try to help students by explaining confusing directions or helping a child read a question can be fired.
As the young narrator, Luke, a rather unambitious eighth grader, struggles to find a topic for a required research paper, he ends up noticing the time his teachers are spending on preparing them for the test, as well as the impacts on the third-grade classroom, where he and his classmates volunteer to help the younger students, many of whom are not native English speakers, with reading. He remembers his own time in third grade, and how some of his classmates were held back just because of a poor performance on test day.
So, he starts asking questions about the statewide test called the FCAT. With some prodding from his teachers, he starts interviewing teachers and doing online research. He finds some of his favorite authors are against these tests, and also learns about the money involved, the conflicts of interest, the school resources being diverted to preparing students for testing, the impact on teachers, and the fact that these tests don’t necessarily measure what they are supposed to – student learning.
Armed with this research, Luke gains the support of his two best friends, and together they organize a schoolwide revolt with help from some unexpected allies that eventually spreads well beyond their own school. The book also explores themes of book banning and the effect of divorce on children.
Durbin’s books have become a staple of most school’s middle and high school libraries. With previous books published by nationally-known imprints like Random House, University of Minnesota Press, and Scholastic, this book, just like his previous novel “The Hidden Room,” are self-published, by Lake Vermilion Press. Durbin currently lives in Duluth and on Lake Vermilion.
This book is available at independent bookstores and through online vendors, in paperback, digital, and audiobook formats.

The book is recommended for ages 12 to adult.