Dan Gutman

I used to love reading My Weird School as a kid, and I see it has expanded further. The transition to graphic novel is a little rocky but not bad. The authors even included a survey to review how they’re doing with their first comic attempt.

You can tell the characters are copied-and-pasted and manipulated to do a few poses. I get it. Taking shortcuts as an artist is certainly fine, especially with lengthy projects like graphic novels. I only point it out because it gave the artwork such a stiff feeling.

Anyway, the story’s nonsensical but fun. At one point, AJ and Andrea argue over killing aliens or not. Yeah, the story’s wacky as you would expect. There are a lot of well-meaning facts in the story from climate change to NASA. The running gag” …That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened” always felt like an awkward transition to me. But I also fully acknowledge I’m not the intended demographic. I’m sure kiddies will have a blast like I used to do with the chapter books as a kid.… (more)

First sentence: Most teachers don't really want you to know anything about the Beatles! They want you to know about Abraham Lincoln and educational stuff like that.

Premise/plot: This is a "nonfiction" book. The framework is fiction, a fictional brother and sister duo battle it out to see who knows more about the Beatles. The information they're sharing is factual and nonfiction.

The book talks about the band, The Beatles. It talks about the four members of the band, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Each Beatle gets his own personal biographical chapter. Other chapters talk more about the band as a whole--chronicling the timeline of the band.

My thoughts: Did I learn anything new? No. Is that surprising? Not really if you KNOW me. I liked this one. I did. I was slightly annoyed by the fictional framework. However, I do appreciate that this one focused on the band AND the individuals within the band. I do think the Beatles are best introduced by their music. I know this is impossible to do in a book. Or perhaps not impossible, challenging enough, but the best way to get to know the Beatles is by....listening to the Beatles. Without that immediate connection to the music itself, I'm not sure how memorable or impactful or interesting or entertaining the book is.… (more)