Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Adam needed a break from the heaviness of the second Harry Potter book, so we took an interlude for some fun Judy Blume: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. It was not as good as I had remembered from when I was a kid. (I had loved this book!) I was surprised to discover that it's a character driven novel; surprised because books written for children these days seem largely plot driven. (Likely because books have a tough job these days competing for a kid's attention with all the video games, etc. Thirty years ago books were a form of entertainment, regardless of how gripping the plot-line... I can't help but wonder if it was Judy Blume that got me hooked on character driven novels?)

I wasn't overly impressed with my rereading of this child classic, but Adam and Noah sure were. We read the novel over a couple days because the kids kept begging me to read more and more. They found the book hilarious and are so excited that there are sequels to read. It's so special to watch a child get hypnotized by a book, pulled in and not want to leave the characters. Judy Blume books seem to have that effect on children. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing was the perfect novel to take Adam's mind off the darkness of Harry Potter for a while.