Tuesday, January 11, 2011

"Joey Pigza" books, by Jack Gantos

Some exciting books have flown onto my radar today: "Joey Pigza Loses Control" & "Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key," two in a series by Jack Gantos. These were recommended by our oldest daughter. Few know our youngest child, Bobby, as well as his older siblings and our daughter stumbled upon these this week. Of course, she knew we'd appreciate hearing about them. The books by Jack Gantos, in this series, are geared toward 3rd - 6th or 7th graders. Joey Pigza is a busy kid, and as you've probably guessed, has some BIG problems.

Mr. Gantos also has a series for younger kids: ("The Rotten Ralph Rotten Readers")  & I tried one out today on my first grade class. Put it this way, they've fallen in love with Rotten Ralph, a very naughty cat who's always getting into trouble and they gave this book two thumbs up!

These books aren't new to bookshelves around the globe, but we've just discovered them so have to pass along the goodness! I checked and one of my favorite sites carries them. Amazon.com

As I read the following, I found myself laughing so hard there were tears rolling down my cheeks. This is my life and it's not funny. It's only a hunch but guessing here that Jack's family is pretty impressed with where he took his creativity. Impresses me! I'm going to end today's blog with this excerpt taken from his bio on his website:

"Jack Gantos was born in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. He remembers playing a lot of “pass the chalk” in Mrs. Neiderheizer’s class in first grade. He was in the Bluebird reading group, which he later found out was for the slow readers. To this day he’d rather be called a Bluebird than a slow reader. His favorite game at that time was playing his clothes were on fire and rolling down a hill to save himself..."

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