Helpful Score: 4
I have not read this one, but I put it on my bookshelf in my classroom, and a few students read it and LOVED it! I have 7th graders who are not reading on level and they read this book fast and wished there was a sequel. This is a great book for kids who either can't read that well or are reluctant readers!
Helpful Score: 3
From Booklist
Gr. 5-7. Here's one for every reader weary of being assigned novels in which the dog dies. For expressing his true views of Old Shep, My Pal, eighth-grade football hero Wallace Wallace earns a detention that takes him off the team and plunks him down in the auditorium, where his almost equally stubborn English teacher is directing a theatrical version of--you guessed it. To the delight of some cast members, but the loud outrage of Drama Club President, Rachel Turner, Wallace Wallace makes a few suggestions to punch up the production; by the end, it's a rock musical and the (stuffed) pooch actually pulls through. At least, that's the plan. Briskly stirring in complications and snappy dialog, Korman adds mystery to the fun with an unknown saboteur, caps the wildly popular play with an explosive (literally) climax, and finishes with Rachel and Wallace Wallace finally realizing that they were made for each other. Except for Old Shep, everyone, even the teacher, comes out a winner.
Gr. 5-7. Here's one for every reader weary of being assigned novels in which the dog dies. For expressing his true views of Old Shep, My Pal, eighth-grade football hero Wallace Wallace earns a detention that takes him off the team and plunks him down in the auditorium, where his almost equally stubborn English teacher is directing a theatrical version of--you guessed it. To the delight of some cast members, but the loud outrage of Drama Club President, Rachel Turner, Wallace Wallace makes a few suggestions to punch up the production; by the end, it's a rock musical and the (stuffed) pooch actually pulls through. At least, that's the plan. Briskly stirring in complications and snappy dialog, Korman adds mystery to the fun with an unknown saboteur, caps the wildly popular play with an explosive (literally) climax, and finishes with Rachel and Wallace Wallace finally realizing that they were made for each other. Except for Old Shep, everyone, even the teacher, comes out a winner.
Helpful Score: 2
Gordon Korman is hilarious for young readers. In this book a boy must write a glowingly positive book report about "Old Yeller," which he detests. His honesty results in being repeatedly required to redo the assignment. The boy devises a clever scheme to satisfy his teacher while remaining honest. As is typical in all of Korman's books for children, the laughs build up throughout the story until the extravagantly outlandish, no-holds-barred grand finale.
Helpful Score: 2
FUN plot about reading books where the dogs ALWAYS die! A student turns the plot of the school play around and it affects the whole school. It was a fun book! I read it out loud to my kids and they didn't want me to stop!
