What Would Joey Do? is a 2003 novel in a series by Jack Gantos about the character, Joey Pigza. The title is a play on the Christian phrase "What would Jesus do?", which Mrs. Lapp, Joey's homeschooling tutor, asks him at her doorstep on every visit. The phrase is also a mirror to Joey's own trouble-filled life, as to which choice would be the best for "mopping up the messy corners of his life." Plot summary The book deals with Joey as he tries to take charge of correcting his wrongs in his life and the lives of the people he knows, before finally learning that his priority should be doing what's best for himself and leaving the others to their own ways. The story starts out with his father, Carter Pigza, who also has ADHD, riding his motorcycle noisily around the neighborhood. Joey's mother, Fran, came out screaming at him, resulting in him crashing his motorcycle into an old apple tree, where a branch stabbed him. Carter was admitted into hospital, but he later ran off. Throughout the story, Frances had Joey home schooled by her old friend Mrs. Lapp, along with Olivia, Mrs. Lapp's sullen, bratty, blind daughter. Carter kept on bugging their family so Frances had to put out a restraining order to keep him away. Frances was also dating a new boyfriend, Booth Duprey, who was a photographer at her working place and whom Joey disliked. Joey's grandmother was concerned of Joey having no friends, and persuaded Joey to make friends with Olivia, which Joey found very depressing and tiring, for Olivia's main goal is to either make Joey so miserable he would run off or establishing in her mother's point of view that Joey is up to no good, so as for her to be sent off to a boarding school, where she preferred to be. Olivia stated that many kids like Joey had come to be her homeschooling partner and had gone off, Joey would be the last one her mother would try. Some time later, Joey's grandmother declared that she would die if Joey could not bring Olivia to meet her and prove that she is Joey's friend. Meanwhile, a performance of the musical Godspell was in town, which happened to be Olivia's favorite show. However, Mrs. Lapp disliked the show due to its novelty portrayal of religion and forbade Olivia from seeing