Dan Gutman

This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I'm 21, so automatically I am not the target audience, but that doesn't mean that I have never been a kid who once enjoyed kid books. I still love kids' books and read a lot of them. Go through my shelves and there is plenty of evidence for it, from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to anything by Dr. Seuss, Mo Willems to Lemony Snicket to C. S. Lewis to Beverly Cleary. Rick Riordan to Dav Pilkey, Geronimo Stilton and Jigsaw Jones and Goosebumps, and show more hundreds of picture books.

I am a person that was in my school's gifted and talented program. I was/am a G.T. kid. A.J. is OBVIOUSLY not. What a rip off this book would have been had I bought it. Luckily it was just something my little sister checked out from the library for Halloween that I happened to notice and read for fun. So one might argue that I'm a G.T. girl, and not a boy. I knew a boy who was also G.T. in my school who I was very close friends with all the way up to high school graduation. He would have never acted like this!

I have so many gripes it isn't even funny. G.T. kids are not as cruel and self-centered as this book paints its main character. We make jokes, but our IQ and intellect goes beyond childish tendencies. G.T. kids are highly sensitive when it comes to emotions and we are very empathetic. Yes, we would laugh if someone's underwear was showing, but we would not hyperfocus on it or make them feel bad or call them crybabies or dumbheads. Girl or boy, there are lines in behavior that are distinctly drawn between an average child and a G.T. child. A.J. isn't G.T. Gifted and talented kids don't go around thinking others should be in the GT program. Its a meaningless label when you're a kid. All you know is you're tested, you get accepted into some kind of extra thing that gives you different projects to do in class or just tells you that you have something that makes you a bit special, it isn't an over arching acknowledgement of intelligence for children. We don't care that we are in GT when we are young, we just are and life goes on, we run out to the playground and play with our friends and never bring it up because it really means nothing from a kid's perspective. We don't tack extra labels to ourselves, it isn't until we are older that we understand fully what it is, but it isn't something to be flaunted or tossed about in thought.

Next complaint: overexaggeration. I've observed kids my whole life. I see my little sister on a daily basis and have helped care for her over the years. I knew most of her schoolmates and went to her school. I have little cousins. I've tutored younger kids and observed them at children's hospitals and all kinds of events in all kinds of playing activities, school activities, and various conversations. None of them talk or present ideas the way A.J. does. They say jokes that aren't funny, they don't use the same jokes or sentence constructions for everything. They might stretch time, but they won't use the same one constantly for everything.

Next: costume choice. Kids can't wear costumes like the boys did when I was in school. I wasn't in there that long ago either, probably from about 2000-2012, which was during the time that this book was published. You couldn't have anything covering your face, much less an axe with fake blood on you. Maybe my school was out of the norm, but violent things weren't super allowed. You couldn't have weapon props at all on your person or as part of your costume, regardless of what you were. Fake blood could be painted on your clothes, or as makeup on your face, but no weapons at all. No guns for cowboys, no swords for pirates, nothing like that. But maybe my school was the only one with such costume requirements and restrictions.

Next: the kids' activities. Elementary schoolers don't T.P. people's houses. I had trouble maker friends who knew about T.P.ing but no one did it until middle and high school. In my experience, that isn't a grade school activity, but again, maybe my school and city aren't as normal as everywhere else where such thing smight frequently occur. But why have that happen? Why encourage kids to do activities like that when they can do so many other things? Elementary kids go to school, they play at the park, they go to their friends' houses to play or do sleepovers, they play games or go to the movies with their friends' parents. Middle schoolers are the hell raisers who walk around and cause trouble. Thats the age where they start hating school and people, in my experience. Some kids don't love school, but very few say they hate it or just hate on everything and everyone around them. Kids are too young to care umless their upbringing has exposed them to crueler parts of human nature and bullying. They like you or don't but they aren't vindictive. They just about play with anyone who isn't too strange to them or who doesn't have cooties. Boys don't hate girls. I was a very accepted girl to all the boys and I played woth them all the time. I was one of the smartest kids in my class, not a brown-noser, but all A honor roll and people knew that. I was never disliked for it, nor did boys ever call my anything or refuse to play with me. The big thing is cooties.

Next: History and quotes. "Let them eat cake". A phrase not uttered by kings. Maybe not even said by Marie Antoinette. It was attributed to a princess or queen and Marie Antoinette, in France, during times when there were famines or social issues revolving around bread. It wasn't even literal modern cake as we or as kids would understand it. Not to get too into detail about it, but I thought it was dumb to have the male principal utter this phrase and say it is attributed to amny kings as a kingly phrase. I mean, unless you want to make commentary about teachers teaching kids wrong and speakingnlies that they were taught in school, then by all means go for it, but I don't believe that is the point. Wrong for the character, misquoted history, way to go author who can't research quotes to use properly in writing. Sure, you can just write whatever and try to get away with it....lets just go ahead and say that Columbus was an Asian or that Tomatoes are blue and America was colonized by Atlanteans, I mean, who cares about the actual historical details right? Its a book for children, but that doesn't give a person the right to be sloppy. The head chopping is accurate, but of course we wouldn't want kings to be known for peaceful activity now would we? We NEED historical accuracy. Too bad there is no consistency here.

The author goes beyond to really mess up a book for children. He misses the mark on what a G.T. kid is like, he highlights bad behavior that isn't even usually an elementary school activity, he emphasizes bullying and hatefulness where it might not even exist. He overexaggerates childhood diction and he just misses the mark on what a good children's book should be. I DON'T recommend this book for anyone, at all. Not for children, not for parents, not for appreciators of Children's Literature. Awful, awful, awful. There are tons of other books out there for children that are amazing that should not be missed on account of reading this book.

After reading this book, I'm convinced that it doesn't take much to get published when it comes to children's literature. All you have to do is overexaggerate and focus on things kids love, like candy and Halloween, then put everything in an environment that revolves around school. It doesn't matter if you can actually write well or create a compelling story with lovable characters. But hey, what do I know? I'm only a writer in a college writing program who has read a lot and was once a kid.

Captain Underpants is better. The potty humor only adds to push intriguing stories, while the characters are lovable and fun and aren't as awful as A.J. and his friends are, nor are they as intellectually challenged.

Give your kids some Berenstain Bears, Clifford, Geronimo Stilton, and Captain Underpants or Ricky Ricotta. They'll be better off.

P.S. No one wants their friends to die, even if it is for candy, come on man, don't be such a lazy fool. show less

I think this book wants to return Jim Thorpe to a place of mainstream knowledge, and to be inclusive about the many great players of baseball. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that detract from that goal -- from the grandkid being a jerk (so there are no positive depictions of Native Americans as characters), to the stereotype-reinforcing Native American alcoholism and historical references to Thorpe as a savage, to the great athlete but not a great baseball player phenomenon -- show more unintentionally this book portrays an extraordinary athlete as a sad and lost figure -- a tragic portrayal, rather than a celebratory one, and I found it more than a little depressing. Realistic? Probably, but what is the goal of the book? If the desire is to restore Thorpe as an icon, I give it a swing and a miss. show less

I used to love reading My Weird School as a kid, and I see it has expanded further. The transition to graphic novel is a little rocky but not bad. The authors even included a survey to review how they’re doing with their first comic attempt.

You can tell the characters are copied-and-pasted and manipulated to do a few poses. I get it. Taking shortcuts as an artist is certainly fine, especially with lengthy projects like graphic novels. I only point it out because it gave the artwork such a show more stiff feeling.

Anyway, the story’s nonsensical but fun. At one point, AJ and Andrea argue over killing aliens or not. Yeah, the story’s wacky as you would expect. There are a lot of well-meaning facts in the story from climate change to NASA. The running gag” …That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened” always felt like an awkward transition to me. But I also fully acknowledge I’m not the intended demographic. I’m sure kiddies will have a blast like I used to do with the chapter books as a kid. show less

Rappy the Raptor is a rapping velociraptor, whose penchant for speaking in rhyme, after a bad fall from his family nest, has his parents rushing him to the hospital. It is an injury, a neurological condition, or is Rappy just a natural rhymster...?

Although I would imagine that some children will really enjoy the rhyming text here, when it is read aloud, I wasn't that thrilled with Rappy the Raptor. The rhymes felt forced to me, the subject matter left me cold, and the artwork was garish and show more unappealing. show less