Notes from the Midnight Driver by Jordan SonnenblickScholastic, 2006

A funny and sweet book, with a perfect smart-ass narrative voice. Alex, who is sixteen, is arrested for drunk driving: he’d planned to tell off his dad for leaving his mom, but he only makes it as far as a neighbor’s lawn. As an alternative to a trial and jail time, he gets probation—and a community service program in which he’s assigned to a local nursing home’s most crotchety resident. Predictably, the two become friends, and each has something to teach the other: but Sonnenblick tells the story in a way that’s smart, not sappy.