This book is awesome! It is a historic story with added humor. It was very funny and l I would recommend it to anyone.

It’s not an easy book, but it does make for a compelling story, in spite of the protagonist’s limited movements. I walked into this title looking for an explanation of what makes Jack Gantos tick. I never found my answer. Instead, I found a book I can read and enjoy and recommend ad nauseum. And as trades go, that one sounds like a good deal to me.

This was a really funny book. Jack Gantos (the story is a combination of real experiences and fiction) gets grounded for "life" (the summer) for several things. (including pulling the trigger on a rifle he didn't know was armed, and wasn't supposed to touch) he gets involved in the local newspaper scribing obituaries, and his summer gets interesting from there. this is probably because its semi-nonfiction, but he dosent follow up some plotlines. (but life is like that, not all plotlines get followed) Funny book.

I enjoyed this Newbery winner though not as much as past winners. It was different, had interesting characters, great black humour but some events were odd - for example, the Hell's Angels coming to town and burning down houses. I don't know where it fit in the story.

This would make a good read aloud for an upper elementary teacher who wanted a story that stresses history and writing.

Jack does it again. This latest of Jack-the-Author's books about Jack falls somewhere between autobiography and pure fiction, a land where Mr. Gantos seems always at home. The story's alternately weirdly funny and just plain weird. Its young narrator proves dead-on as an authentic kid. Somehow or other, Mr. Gantos turns the last quarter of the book into a mystery, though who needed more than his usual totally entertaining episodic riffs on being a kid? And, if you're looking for morals, there's one here about preserving history, and a theme that takes us back to America's early 1960s.