This book’s text was remarkable, since it was definitely fictional, but it was partly a story about the author’s real life (Gantos, 2011). The setting was clearly around the 1960s in a small town, and the style of writing truly felt as though you were in the mind of the young boy himself with a s...
Here is my blackboard post on Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, the first part of a three-part series that I need to read after this semester. Overall Response: When respectively looking at and reading the front and back cover of Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, I was expecting to engage in a silly nove...
Review 1The first two chapters are good because it explains a little bit about the characters. First, the main character is Joey and his parents are divorced. Joey has his partner of life called Pablo. For example, whenever Joey does something bad, Pablo follows him and does it. They were all in ...
Joey Pigza was a boy with a divorced mother and father that do nothing but argue and wears pads that controls him from being too hyper. He is mom's helper, Mrs. Lapp's helper, Olivia's helper, Grandma's helper, Dad's helper, Pablo's helper, and even a helper for a sack full of dogs! Joey tries to...
Just when Joey Pigza's wired world finally seems to be under control, his good-for-nothing dad pops back into his life. This time, though, Carter Pigza is a new man - literally. After a lucky lotto win, Carter Pigza has a crazy new outlook on life, and he's even changed his name to Charles Heinz....
From the Newbery Medal-winning author of Dead End in Norvelt, eight side-splitting stories about a boy who is doing his best to keep his head above waterAs the Henry family sets sail for a new life on Cape Hatteras, fourth-grader Jack is struggling to chart a course between his parents' contradic...
From the Newbery Medal–winning author of Dead End in Norvelt, life for Jack Henry in a brand-new place is filled with the same old craziness Jack Henry has moved to the island of Barbados with his offbeat family and his secret diary. But still he can't escape his penchant for wacky misadventur...
Sometimes it seems as if Jack Gantos has an unending well of story ideas from his days as a kid. He takes actual experiences from the first twelve years or so of his life and mixes in just enough fiction to make for stories that are hilarious to readers of any age and reading level. Dead End in N...
Lucas Pires MoraisMs.WhiteIndependent Reading18th October 12Hole in my LifeBy Jack Gantos, Biography, 200 PagesHole in my life is a very eye opening auto biography by Jack Gantos, a young American man who led a life without any superstition. Today Gantos is a successful children’s book write, bu...
This is one of my sons' summer reading books; my sons are 10 and will enter fifth grade in the fall. Although I like the book a lot, I wish my boys (who aren't the most mature kids around) were reading it in a year or two. I say that because the book has surprisingly mature content, including ref...
Ralph exhibits all the signs of a sociopath: a grandiose sense of self, lack of remorse or shame, an incapacity for love and a lack of empathy. He also exhibits poor impulse control and likely had early behavior problems as a kitten. His attitude towards Sarah is hostile and domineering. But more...
One day when Sarah came home early from school, Rotten Ralph was wearing a frightening Halloween mask. Ralph and Sarah went inside. Suddenly, a creepy hand slipped a note under the door. "Look," said Sarah. "We've been invited to a costume party. "It reads, COME AS THE THI...
He is also the author of the popular picture books about Rotten Ralph and JACK’S BLACK BOOK, the latest in his acclaimed series of semiautobiographical story collections featuring his alter ego, Jack Henry. His book HOLE IN MY LIFE was a Robert Seibert Honor Book and a Michael J. Printz Honor Boo...
The “windward” side, Dad had called it. It was rugged and gusty, and the blue waves arrived in towering rows all the way from Africa. They glided across the ocean like a conquering navy and crashed against the shore, which was fortified with huge skull-shaped boulders crowned with spikes of sharp...
I was thinking that getting a C on the report was good enough. In class, Miss Noelle had made up a list from the Wright brothers to Amelia Earhart to Charles Lindbergh—one flier for each kid. She gave me Will Rogers and said I reminded her of him because he was an “odd duck.” I looked at his pict...
I always had a few extra minutes before wood shop started and figured the library was the most logical location for my muse to take some quiet time and visit me. But the library was such a non-creative place it made sense that my muse never showed up. First, the few books we had were tethered on ...
Dad likes to read books about World War II. Betsy reads a lot of “English literature,” as she calls it. Mom reads short stories, and Pete reads picture books. I had been reading so many detective books I began to think I was a detective myself. “Hey, Dad, can I find anything for you?” “A new job,...
Mom and I had just gotten back from grocery shopping and I was restless. I had been looking at the Pagoda house to see if Gary had returned so I could ask him about the wallet, which was in my pocket. I kept touching it and soon I was looking at Tomi’s house to see if she was smoking out by the f...