Reviews for How not to start third grade
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
Back-to-School Lesson #6: Never think that starting school with your little brother could be anything but a total and complete disaster, says Will, who is looking forward to his first day of third grade. Will is also dreading his rowdy little brother Steve's first day of kindergarten at the same school. As expected, Steve's high jinks cause one upset after another, culminating in an all-school food fight. Divided into brief chapters, this Step into Reading title is well tuned to a newly confident reader's abilities. Simply constructed sentences and brisk dialogue make use of lively vocabulary and plenty of active verbs. Large color illustrations extend the mayhem with cartoonish characters, exaggerated expressions, and lots of activity. .--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2007 Booklist
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Will and his little brother Steve face third grade and kindergarten in this over-the-top chapter book in the venerable Step-Into-Reading series for new readers. Will knows that going to the same school as his brother is going to be a challenge, but he does not know how much of a challenge it will be. From the moment Will has to hold Steve's hand and take him to kindergarten, everything that can go wrong does. Whether Steve is slamming all the lockers, making faces through the third-grade window or starting a food fight in the cafeteria, he's embarrassing his older brother. Expressive and stylized color illustrations add to the exaggerated plot lines. A comfortable, predictable ending on the bench outside of the principal's office will make new readers everywhere smile with recognition. No one will mistake this for a lesson book about back to school, but new readers will find many reasons to laugh out loud with Will and Steve. (Fiction. 6-9) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
School Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Gr 2-3-This very slight book should be called How to Turn off Newly Independent Readers. Longer paragraphs with fewer illustrations look great on the surface in this "Step 4" reader. Unfortunately, the story, in which Will describes his first day of third grade, is completely unbelievable. His brother is starting kindergarten. When the boys arrive at school, Steve is off and running-tearing around the halls, banging on the lockers, and creating total chaos. Will tries to ignore him but when the family dog finds his way into the school cafeteria, everybody and everything goes wild. While all of this is silly, it is not realistic. No school lets new students (kindergarteners, no less) roam the halls on their own or allows a food fight in the cafeteria. The illustrations are just as wild as the story with little to offer except for a pretty good description of what should not happen. This title fails to be funny; it's simply frenzied.-Susan Lissim, Dwight School, New York City (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
