Just catching up on Spinelli.  I bet this was challenged by a few righteous conservatives back in the day.  Now, to me, it comes off as a little dated, and a little trying-too-hard.   ( )

This is Diary of a Wimpy Kid in prose rather than comics, and a more vulgar version. While Jason Herkimer & Greg Heffley of "Wimpy Kid" have similar self-absorbed attitudes and behaviors, Jason has an inkling of a conscience and is subtly maturing, while Greg Heffley stays true to his obnoxious self. The subject matter is always light in Wimpy Kid, while this novel does gently poke into some serious subject matter. Two scenes made me laugh, one with gut-busting laughter (the home-economics teacher)and one a chuckle.

The speaker is crude; there are quite a few profanities (real ones) in this book, which I appreciated because it made it realistic, but Spinelli, in doing so, perhaps dated the book so as to turn off future teenage audiences. I'm worried about the protagonist's reference to "grown ups", his "cootyhead sister", and his insults which range from "hemorrhoid head," to "pissant" because one thing you can count on with middle-schoolers is that they are very particular about their expressions. I'm not sure my kids ever refer to adults as "grownups" and they are definitely too old for "cootyhead." I'm afraid that little things like this will turn my kids off early into the novel, prompting them to turn their nose up to Jason as a dork, but I'm not sure....

I'll let you know after I have a kid actually read it. It's a bit long (which is a sad thing to say, I know) and therefore will intimidate the type of immature students who would be the ideal audience. I've purchased a copy 3 times and 3 times it's disappeared, which could be a good sign or perhaps just a result of a student borrowing it, reading 1 word, and leaving it in the cafeteria or his locker for the next year, where it would ultimately end up in the trash.

I predict that my "Marcelines" would never be interested in this boy nonsense.

Overall, I recommend this to 6th & 7th graders only (8th would be too old), and be worried about the parents picking it up and scanning it.


( )

Eh. As a first novel, it wasn't bad. I liked the very frank way he dealt with bodies and the anxiety associated with them, but other than that mostly forgettable. What he was able to accomplish later in his career makes it even harder to like this one, though. ( )

this is a good book about a kid earning how to go through seventh grade. ( )