The book, “The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppet” by Tom Anglburger, is GREAT! The best part? The ‘surprise’ ending. For me, the book held a lot of anticipation because I wanted to know who or what Jabba was. The reader does not discover this until the end and it really IS a ‘surprise.’ Instead, Origami Yoda occupies the majority of the pages in his attempts at forming a rebel alliance of students to fight the ‘Funtime Menace’ and Empress Robskee. The goal of the Alliance? To restore order in the school universe by getting their electives restored. The goal of the empress? To remove all impediments to the learning process in order to allow the students to better channel their energies such that their test scores improve dramatically. Enter Tommy and crew…they are willing to drag the scores down, point by point, student by student, but are confronted every step of the way by their arch enemy. That is until the parent meeting. When all hope is lost, Tommy’s Funtime teacher, Mr.Howel who doesn’t seem to like Funtime that much, savatages the conference changing the focus from the kids’ rebellion against Funtime to Funtime itself. With a click of a hidden remote control switch, he allows the parents to see just how mind numbing the Funtime program is. Who’s side IS Mr. Howel on anyway? Up to this point in the series, Mr. Howel is pretty much despised by the kids, so you wouldn’t think that this teacher in particular would do anything to assist the student / rebel cause. For all the goodness of the book, there remains one thing I didn’t like and that was not getting to see the kids actually take the State Standards Tests and knowing if they flunked or not. That is reserved for the next instalment. Based on what I thought of the book, I give this book a 4 of 5 stars. I love this series, but this one is my favorite yet. That probably has something to do with the subject matter--this time the conflict centers around the students' outrage when their elective classes are eliminated in favor of a lame video-driven program that's supposed to help increase their scores on their state standards tests. I thought this book did a great job of bringing the issue to the middle grade level, helping to illustrate the conflict between test-driven education and enriching education programs that encompass a variety of subjects instead of focusing on drill and kill testing skills. It made good fodder for conversation between me and my daughter. Really looking forward to the continuation of the epic battle in the next installment.
What do You think about Papp Jabba Greift An (2014)?
I thought it was weird since Howell was the one with jab a the puppet.I thought it was a good book.
—abcd
Enjoyed each book in the series & can't wait for the next one due out in a few weeks.
—janderson278
So far this has been my boys & my favorite book in the series.
—lizzzy369
