Raucously funny, irreverent, and peopled with
anti-heroes kids will laugh at and identify with. And shhh! don’t tell, but they’ve all gotten very
positive reviews and in come cases, accolades.
Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey. Two mischievous boys, who are the bane of
their principal’s existence, turn him into their comic book hero Capt. Underpants
with a Hypno-Ring. Together they fight
an equally toilet-humored named villain: Dr. Diaper. Parts comic book and laff out loud humor,
Pilkey’s series ropes in mostly boys like himself : the class clown, or anybody
who secretly wants to be. Pilkey shares
his own story as an illustrator and author, giving hope to grade school
doodlers. Many parents are concerned
about the preponderance of toilet humor, intentionally misspelled words and the
lack of respect given to authority figures.
Butt I think they are perfect for a summer afternoon lazing around with friends or sleepover with
a buddy.
Miss Daisy is Crazy by Dan Gutman . First in the My Weird School series. A. J., who announces he hates
school, proceeds to tell us all about the various students and teachers who
inhabit his extremely vertical school. While
teachers may acknowledge that most kids think their school (and teachers) are
weird, they certainly don’t want to encourage it! A silly series of relatively short chapter
books for young readers to help them increase their literacy skills and tickle
their funny bone. There is also a
subsequent series My Weird School Daze, as A.J graduates to 3rd grade.
Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Not Reading by Tim Greenwald. You
wouldn’t expect a story about how to get out of school work to be picked
by educators for inclusion on the Rebecca Caudill 2015 list. Charlie has gotten by for years having
someone else do a lot of his school work and is proud of it. Unfortunately for him, his cohort stops
cooperating and he is forced to come up with more schemes to avoid doing
work. Some might say the schemes are
more work! Eventually Charlie is caught
and pays the price. But his ego and
optimistic outlook never suffer as he learns some lessons in personal
responsibility.
Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out by Meg Cabot. Teachers try to find books with wide appeal
for their students. But a book about
glitter, baton twirling and featuring a bright pink cover probably won’t get
much enthusiasm from the boys in the class.
This is 5th in the series Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls. Allie captures our hearts as a
sympathetic, humorous, spot-on character who has to navigate the world of
tweens. She does this with a List of
Rules to cover situations as they crop up.
From the 1st book, where
Allie plans on how to stop her family from moving (A different school! A
horrible house! What friends?!) to this installment, where she must choose
between conflicting commitments, Allie matures in decision-making and coping. Author Cabot (Princess Diaries) knows
how to combine every little girl’s dreams and concerns with a worthwhile read.
The Teacher’s Funeral :a Comedy in Three Parts. By Richard Peck. Students complain
that too many books have been written where the dog dies (for an excellent take
on this, try No More Dead Dogs). But
a story where the teacher dies?(I
shudder to mention Peck’s Here Lies the Librarian.) Who wants to read about their own demise, especially
as a comedy? Russell Culver, 15, can’t
wait to escape from the one room school house limping along in turn of the
century rural Indiana. When his teacher “turns up her toes” right before the
new school year begins in August, he figures that’s a sign. However, a new teacher is found, right in the
bosom of his own family and his time at school is not over. Peck keeps us
turning the pages in this humorous story filled with lively escapades and rich
in detail, harking back to a time and place uniquely part of our country’s
past.
1 comment:
love this list fun and creative
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