{"id":260,"date":"2008-11-11T23:08:22","date_gmt":"2008-11-12T03:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/11\/review-of-knucklehead-by-jon-scieszka\/"},"modified":"2008-11-28T23:46:13","modified_gmt":"2008-11-29T03:46:13","slug":"review-of-knucklehead-by-jon-scieszka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=260","title":{"rendered":"Review of Knucklehead, by Jon Scieszka"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"knucklehead.jpg\"\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Knucklehead<\/em><\/p>\n

Tall Tales & Mostly True Stories About Growing Up Scieszka<\/em><\/p>\n

by Jon Scieszka<\/p>\n

Viking, 2008.\u00a0 106 pages.<\/p>\n

Starred Review<\/p>\n

www.penguin.com\/youngreaders<\/a><\/p>\n

Now we know how Jon Scieszka got so funny!\u00a0 He grew up with five brothers.<\/p>\n

I got to hear the author read from this book at the National Book Festival in September, so I knew I simply had to read the book myself.\u00a0 It turned out that the parts he read were by no means the only hilarious parts.<\/p>\n

The cover is like a comic book.\u00a0 The chapters are short.\u00a0 And funny.\u00a0 The whole thing is beautifully designed to draw kids in and not let them go.<\/p>\n

Now, I have seven brothers myself (but six sisters — which makes a big difference!), so he couldn’t really surprise me with his stories.\u00a0 His take on the mayhem and the bright ideas six boys can come up with are invariably hilarious.\u00a0 Several chapters end with a “Knucklehead Warning:\u00a0 Do not try this at home . . . or anywhere else.”\u00a0 (But he makes them sound so much fun!)<\/p>\n

I love the babysitting chapter.\u00a0 Why didn’t we think of this?<\/p>\n

“We didn’t get paid for babysitting.\u00a0 Until one day Jim and I figured out a great way to make a little money on the job.<\/p>\n

“We were watching Jeff.\u00a0 He had rolled under a chair and got stuck.\u00a0 We dragged him out and stood him up holding on to the coffee table.\u00a0 And that’s when Jeff spotted the ashtray.<\/p>\n

“We watched Jeff grab a cigarette butt.<\/p>\n

“We watched Jeff put it in his mouth.<\/p>\n

“We watched Jeff chew the butt, make a crazy face, then spit it out.<\/p>\n

“Jim and I cracked up laughing.<\/p>\n

“Then we gave Jeff another butt and watched him do it all over again.<\/p>\n

“It was such a great trick that we charged all of our friends ten cents to watch.”<\/p>\n

I also love his chapter about learning to read.\u00a0 He talks about the very strange family he read about in school.<\/p>\n

“The alien kids were named Dick and Jane.\u00a0 Strangest kids I ever heard of. . . .<\/p>\n

“When I read the Dick and Jane stories, I thought they were afraid they might forget each other’s names.\u00a0 Because they always said each other’s names.\u00a0 A lot.<\/p>\n

“So if Jane didn’t see the dog, Dick would say, ‘Look Jane.\u00a0 Look.\u00a0 There is the dog next to Sally, Jane.\u00a0 The dog is also next to Mother, Jane.\u00a0 The dog is next to Father, Jane.\u00a0 Ha, ha, ha.\u00a0 That is funny, Jane.’<\/p>\n

“Did I mention that Dick and Jane also had a terrible sense of humor?<\/p>\n

“At home my mom read me real stories.\u00a0 These were stories that sounded like my life.\u00a0 These were stories that made sense.\u00a0 She read me a story about a guy named Sam.\u00a0 Sam-I-am.\u00a0 He was a fan of green eggs and ham.<\/p>\n

“And then there was the story about the dogs.\u00a0 Blue dogs.\u00a0 Yellow dogs.\u00a0 Dogs that were up.\u00a0 Dogs that were down.\u00a0 Dogs that drove around in cars and met each other at the end of the book for a giant party in a tree.\u00a0 I cheered them on.\u00a0 Go, dogs.\u00a0 Go!\u00a0 I read about them all by myself because I wanted to.\u00a0 Go, dogs.\u00a0 Go!<\/p>\n

“So I guess I didn’t really learn to read by reading about those weirdos Dick and Jane.\u00a0 I learned to read because I wanted to find out more about real things like dogs in cars and cats in hats.”<\/p>\n

This book is tremendous fun.\u00a0 Jon Scieszka is the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, with a special mission to Reach the Reluctant Reader.\u00a0 This book will do that beautifully.\u00a0 What kid (or adult) could resist?<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on the main site at:<\/p>\n

www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Nonfiction\/knucklehead.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Knucklehead Tall Tales & Mostly True Stories About Growing Up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka Viking, 2008.\u00a0 106 pages. Starred Review www.penguin.com\/youngreaders Now we know how Jon Scieszka got so funny!\u00a0 He grew up with five brothers. I got to hear the author read from this book at the National Book Festival in September, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,11,17,42,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-childrens-nonfiction-review","category-humorous","category-starred-review","category-true-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}