Review of The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell

I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell by Jordan Sonnenblick
Genres: Middle Grade
Published by Scholastic Press on February 2, 2021
Pages: 224
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss

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An unbelievably hilarious middle-grade true story from bestselling author Jordan Sonnenblick.In a typical school year, every kid has one or two things go wrong. But for Jordan, there's A LOT going wrong ALL THE TIME.
Take this year. Here are some of the thing going wrong:
-- His teacher hates him. Like, really hates him. Like, is totally out to get him even when he's trying to be good, and is willing to fail him on the simplest things, like show and tell.
-- He has a slight breathing problem because of his asthma. And breathing is never really an optional activity.
-- His pet snake has given birth to way, way, way too many baby snakes, all who need a home.
-- He is finding that becoming The World's Best Drummer in no time whatsoever is maybe not the easiest goal.
-- There are bullies ready to stomp him when all he has to defend himself with is a lunchbox.
And all this doesn't even include the freak swing set accident, the fears inside his head, or the funniest class presentation ever.
By keeping his cool (some of the time), banging on the drums (a lot), and keeping his sense of humor (all the time), Jordan's going to try to make it through the year . . . and grow up to write a book about it!

Here is what I thought

If this is all based on the author’s fourth grade experience he had quite a year and a very good memory!

Jordan’s life has been a bit of a ride and he seemed to have either good or bad experiences with his teachers but he is never good at guessing which will be which. When his fourth grade year starts he hoped for the best but quickly found out it wasn’t going to go very well.

Jordan seemed to be a bit smarter than those in his class and he got distracted a lot and sometimes missed important things that he was suppose to do with a class project. Being someone who finishes his homework quicker than others often got him in trouble with the teacher because he would get bored. Then it seems like he was just on the teachers hit list from then on and no matter what he did it was wrong.

Jordan has a pet snake that he thought was a boy he named Hector but ended up a female that had twenty babies! He asked his teacher if he could bring his pet to show and tell and surprisingly she agreed, but of course things just never go well for Jordan. It started off well but then the class bully ( a girl whose name I forgot) caused a bit of trouble and it all went downhill. He couldn’t even get show and tell to go right for him.

There are a lot of other things that happen to Jordan as we see just how bad of a teacher this one was and Jordan gets moved to another school, etc. I don’t want to go through it all but basically it was a story about his fourth grade year and all the highs and lows but done in a fun and entertaining way that I think young readers would enjoy and can probably relate too.

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