We selected this book as our first class read aloud for several reasons. First of all, after having the opportunity to hear Jack Gantos speak this summer, I have a bit of an author crush on him! Gantos wrote this book after carefully reading back through his childhood journals. The stories that he writes are the slightly exaggerated tales from his life as a 4th grader. How cool for our class to get to read these at the beginning of their 4th grade journey! It is a perfect kick-off as we begin to keep our Writer's Notebooks and as we will begin to work on personal narratives in the coming month. Ask your child to share a bit with you about this funny book! Ask them who laughs the loudest at all the silly parts?
Enjoy the review below that I found on the good
reads website:
 |
|
From the Newbery Medal–winning author of Dead End in Norvelt, eight side-splitting stories about a boy who is doing his best to keep his head above water
As the Henry family sets sail for a new life on Cape Hatteras, fourth-grader Jack is struggling to chart a course between his parents’ contradictory advice on making friends and influencing people. Just tell people what they want to hear, Dad advises. Just tell the truth, Mom cautions. Jack finds there are no easy answers as he drifts through his crazy school year, falling desperately in love with his young teacher, getting suckered into becoming a bad-behavior spy for the principal, and being forced to make a presentable pet out of a duck with backward feet. Indeed, with an airheaded, air-guitar-playing neighbor the closest thing to a friend, and a judgmental older sister his relentless enemy, it’s all he can do to stay afloat.
This colorful and comic new collection of interrelated stories featuring the author’s hapless alter ego is the first of five books in the Jack Henry series, praised by Booklist for their “hilarious, exquisitely painful, and utterly on-target depiction” of a boy’s life.
