The Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry

I haven't watched Project Runway yet!  I am dying to!  I will comment on it tomorrow.

I just read The Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry.  I picked it up because I LOOOOVED The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (not by the same author) and I hoped the two would be in the same vein.  I also know a lot of people think Dave Barry is funny.

This book isn't funny.  Sorry, Dave Barry.  It has a few amusing moments, but nothing to laugh out loud about...and I am an easy lol.  If you are looking for a good book, set this one aside and pick up The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.  You won't be disappointed.

Dave Barry's Class Trip is about Wyatt Palmer, an average middle schooler with a Cuban mother and a crush on a girl way out of his league, Suzana Delgado.  When Wyatt's class heads to Washington, D.C. for a class trip, Wyatt and his friend Matt unearth a possible terrorist plot against the White House.  The boys have to enlist the help of classmates, including the hot and popular Suzana, to foil the terrorists and keep their teachers in the dark so they don't get sent home.

This book just wasn't funny enough and the plot was unbelievable.  I would have been an easy sell - I really liked All-American Girl by Meg Cabot, and that has a similar setup.  But I just didn't buy it.  Stay home from Class Trip.  The very first story about Wyatt's dad is somewhat funny, but it all goes downhill from there. 1 Poppy for content, 3 Poppies for brevity, 4 Poppies overall.

Here's my graphic organizer of the book.  It's pretty similar to the front cover of the book, and SPOILER: don't look if you don't want to see the only funny quote of the book.  This time I started my organizer at the bottom and worked my way up to the kites.  I like how it turned out.

Poppy's Rating Guide

The Brevity Test

I've learned a lot from reading.  I get to visit magical places and vicariously live as an underdog, a villain, a princess, a boy...experiencing so much that I never could have otherwise.  Like most people, I think that the content in fiction is very important.  If I can't believe in the subject matter or learn from it, and most of all, if I'm not intrigued by a book's story, it's not worth reading. 

But lately I have come to a new realization: brevity is king!  A book can be brilliant, but if it's not concise, it's just not that good.  Especially in kids' books!  If I can't finish one of my books in a week, and if I can't read one of my baby brother's books to him in 15 minute installments, it's just not that good.  That doesn't mean that a long book (Harry Potter, anyone?!?) can't be brilliant.  In some books, the content makes the length absolutely necessary.  If the author is good enough, they can make long parts seem short because the story is so good.  Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet "brevity is the soul of wit."  And nobody's said it better (or shorter!) than that.

Rating Guide

So here's my rating system for kids' books:  1 to 5 for content, 1 to 5 for brevity.  For a total of 10 Poppies  A 1 for content means it's boooooring.  A 1 for brevity means it's way too long to keep the interest of a kid like me. 

So far, I've tried to make graphic organizers for The Adventures of Hank the Cowdog and Melonhead and the We-Fix-It Company.  I didn't like either. 

Hank the Cowdog: 2 for content.  3 for brevity.  5 out of 10 Poppies ;)
Melonhead and the We-Fix-It Company: 3 for content.  3 for brevity.  6 out of 10 Poppies



Melonhead review:  I was intrigued by the Washington, D. C.  setting.  There are interesting characters like Pops and Madame and the kids.  But mostly, nothing happened in the first 7 chapters.  The We-Fix-It Company had barely started, and Melonhead had only gotten into a couple of scrapes.  This was my first Melonhead book, so maybe I really missed out on the first ones.  But I stand by my 6 out of 10 Poppies.