Monday, November 20

Judy Moody: Around the World in 8 1/2 Days


by Megen McDonald
illustrated by Peter Reynolds
Candlewick Press 2006

The cats were rumpusing this morning. At one point I heard a sound like cardboard being torn up. I followed the noise into the girl's room and discovered the baby cat (she's 2 years old, but smaller than our other cat, hence the name) trying to hide herself underneath a composition book. Picking the book up, it slipped out of my hand and opened to the following, written by my youngest who is in third grade (all punctuation and grammar is hers).

A Book Review on...
Judy Moody, around the world in 8 1/2 days

Judy Moody around the world in 8 1/2 days by Megan McDonald is a very fun book. It also is very interesting (or at least I think so) because it is realistic fiction (which means it could happen but the author still made it up.) It is about Judy Moody (I think that is obvious) and how she goes through a little trouble because she cannot do her project. Her problem is her friends are mad at her and refuse to do it with her (they are a group that is why she cannot do it by herself.) The reason the title says "Around the world" it project is on "the world." Oh one more thing She meets a new friend on the way.
It turns out this was a review she wrote to submit to her school newspaper, and was published. This newspaper was created by my eldest and her classmates, totally outside of the classroom and curriculum. The paper has lost some steam this year as the older kids find their attentions more focused on school work.

I'm not going to provide my own review of the book. This is the take of an 8 year old girl who likes the Judy Moody books and is as valid -- if not more so -- than anything I could add. She says it's fun from the start, explains what it's about (sort of) and doesn't give away the ending. Sure, I'd love to dig in a clear some things up, maybe make some more observations, talk about how it fits in with the others in the series, but to what end? I will say that she just learned about genres this year (why she mentioned realistic fiction) and that this has been her primary reading interest for a good while. Now she's starting to show interest in fantasy (Peter and the Starcatchers) and has announced that she hopes to be a writer when she grows up.

Some might say one writer in the family is enough, but I'd welcome the company.

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