From School Library Journal Grade 2-4. A fantasy adventure for beginning chapter-book readers. Wiglaf, the would-be hero, lives with his large, brutish family in abject poverty. Their hovel smells worse than their pigsty. Though Wiglaf is the smallest member of the family, he is made to do all the work, and is constantly picked on by the others because he is reluctant to kill any living thing. A traveling minstrel tells Wiglaf's fortune; it shows that he can improve his lot by performing a gallant act. The boy decides to sign up at the local Dragon Slayers' Academy. It guarantees to make him a hero. However, he finds life at the run-down school as difficult as it is at home, and he protests when he is sent out to slay the local dragon on his first day. When his magic sword doesn't work, he switches to another strategy. He has learned that the dragon can't stand bad jokes so he tries a few and, as predicted, the dragon expires at his feet. Wiglaf is a hero without spilling a single drop of blood. The fast-paced, snappy text is filled with jokes and insults; the accompanying black-and-white illustrations are dark and cartoonlike. The tone and style suggest Saturday-morning animated films and will appeal to the same audience. For humorous adventure fantasy that is better crafted and more nourishing, try Jon Scieszka's Knights of the Kitchen Table (Viking, 1991) and other works in the "Time Warp Trio" series A nice reluctant reader book… for fantasies
Well, this brings back memories. As a young child (as you can tell I'm not exactly "old", let's just say I'm somwhere between the age of 13-16 right now) I loved this series of books. I would borrow as many as I could at a time from the library and read them all as fast as I could never stopping to take a break. Now that I'm older I'm seeing how hard it is too find good children books. This book is spectacular for children. It's not found in my libraries or bookstores now days (mostly because it's older) but I'm on my way to finding it for my little brother so he can read the amazing books that I read as a child. "The New Kid at School" was one of the best ones in the series (or so I remember) and I'm sure that children of all ages will enjoy the hilarious, brave (sometimes), and just plain epic characters that reside in these books. I honestly think that the wizard (Oh my gosh! I can't remember his name! DX) was my favorite character. He's awful and because of his magical "skills" he is hilarious. Personally, these books to me are to me the age of innocence. I read them when I was about ....6 (give or take a few years) and so needless to say I love them. <333
What do You think about The New Kid At School (2003)?
Very cute book. Read this with to my 4 year old son. He thought it was hysterical and loved the dragon. The chapters and overall story were just the right length to keep him interested. The physical text was also big enough that he could easily pick out his sight words as we read and was able to work with mom and dad to sound out other words. Some of the vocabulary was still above his skill level so it would be another few years before he could read this on his own without an adult to explain some words to him. There were also just enough illustrations to help a four year old transition from picture books to text only books. It is fun to watch him create his own pictures in his mind. Overall a great series perfect for young children to read with mom and dad or an early reader to read on their own. I see the next 19 books in the series in our future real soon!
—LeslieVA
Mommy's Note:This was a very cute book. SHe asked me to read it after she was done. Barb & Ken as King and Queen? Ha, she didn't get that one. But now she knows pig-latin... The drawings are nice; the "yearbook" at the end was well done; its a good length; not a lot of difficult words. There's a review on the book from another author saying it was like "HP's little brother" and *that* I didn't understand as its totally a different kind of book, differently plotted, differently charactered, etc.Auryn's Review:Wiglaf and Eric had to get rid of Gorzile .when they got rid of him Eric said his name was Erica she was a girl.
—Twyla
Grades 4-5McMullan tells the story of Wiglaf, a young boy who feels maltreated and decides to join a special school that trains heroes, The Dragon Slayer's Academy. Once there, Wiglaf realizes that the school is odd, but he learns to make friends. The story is full of comical adventures and jokes. The illustrations in the book are all black and white, but are very detailed. The pictures are spread out with about three to four pages of text in between. This book will appeal to children by enticing their imagination with an alternate world of reality. Through reading this book, they will joing Wiglaf and his friends on this wonderful journey to find and slay the dragon.Related Content Areas:English Language Arts, Social Emotional LearningLesson Idea:A review on figurative language would work well with this story as it is full of it from cover to cover. The teacher could have the chidren locate different types of figurative language in the text and identify them. They could also come up with some examples of their own.
—Teneka Howland
