Because what good are you as a teacher of reading if you don't occasionally read the books your students are most excited about?
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Getaway
by Jeff Kinney
Harry N. Abrams, 2017
A humorous look at everything that could possibly go wrong on ditch-the-holidays family vacation, with a little bit of arachnophobia thrown in for good measure.
Dog Man and Cat Kid
by Dav Pilkey
Graphix, 2017
You can just about hear Dav Pilkey laughing out loud to himself as he writes these. I mean, really. Allusions to Faulkner? A robot named 80-HD? (say it out loud so you, too, can get the joke)
And in case you think Dog Man is all light fluff with no redeeming qualities, consider how Cat Kid reprograms his robot 80-HD (I can't even type that without cracking up) so that it has free will. "From now on, you can choose your own path." He tells it, "Thou mayest," so that it can choose whether or not to be loyal to Cat Kid. (It does.)
And then there's the part where Cat Kid admits he hasn't been perfect and, in a direct quote from Faulkner, the Italian actress tells him, "...now that you don't have to be perfect...you can be good."
Sure, there's Flip-O-Rama, but there's deep stuff, too.
I love it. My students are older than yours, but they still love these books. I think your new tagline should be, "Equally at home with Faulkner and Flip-O-Rama." Great literature knows no boundaries.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter what age my students are, they all love these books. Dav is a genius!
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