Timothy Roland

I thought this was a good book, for two main reasons. First, I thought that the characters were relatable. The dialogue and sibling relationships allow the reader to connect with Clyde and Claudia, causing the reader to become more engaged. For example, Claudia is always trying to keep her twin brother Clyde out of trouble. Sisters tend to have this motherly nature towards their siblings, and their relationship is definitely applicable to this. The dialogue used also helped portray their show more relationship. When Clyde and Claudia were walking to school at one point in the story, Claudia tells her brother to behave and Clyde responded: ““I’ll try,” I said. The bell rand and I dashed toward the school building. “Slow down, Clyde!” Claudia yelled. I was already racing up the steps. I ran down the hall, into my classroom, and…into Miss Plum!” This is just one instance of how the dialogue helps depict their relationship. I also liked how there were occasional illustrations that reinforced what was happening in the text. I thought this was appropriate for getting readers engaged in the book as well. Sometimes they were just illustrations, but there were times where the book turned into a comic book; the characters had word bubbles and for a few pages it read like a comic. I thought this was another neat aspect of the book. The plot was fast paced and this also kept my interest while reading this book. Clyde ate a radioactive banana during a trip to the museum and now he turns into a monkey whenever he gets excited. Claudia’s task of keeping Clyde out of trouble had become even more difficult! The big idea of this book is siblings are a very important part of our lives and we should cherish the time we have with them. show less

An interesting concept. In the first book in a series targeted to early readers, Detective Dan solves the mystery of the missing marbles of a greedy friend. It is similar to readers in the "I can read" series, but these include biblical principles. I think the execution was decent, in part because I like to see characters where the Bible is a part of everyday life. I would like to have seen the protagonist examine himself rather than identifying greed in his friend and her brother.

Received a copy from Netgalley.
I was nervous when I first started the book with my five year old because I did not know if she would be able to handle the length of the book. It ended up working out perfect. The story was cute about twins, Clyde and Claudia, on their class picture and pet show adventure. We both enjoyed the comic strip parts of the book. That was fun to read and discuss what was going on in the pictures. I liked how the author had a lttle of adventure then Clyde turned into show more a monkey, had some more adventure then turned into a monkey again. The ending was the best for us becuase I got to explain to my daughter how even though sometimes people do things that are mean to us, we can still be the better person and help them out just like Clyde did for Roz and Chopper. show less

Lousy series. It's in the same format as Diary of a Wimpy Kid (text is interrupted with little comic strips that continue with the narrative) but isn't funny OR clever. This series would appeal to early 3rd graders, but I question if quantity rather than quality really does have a benefit in this case. It's just terrible writing, and the only reason I think Scholastic even sells any copies is because it's simply easy enough to read that kids feel like they've made it through a "chapter book" show more (but this hardly qualifies as that). show less