Book review
Because of Mr. Terupt
I rated this book five stars because it was unlike any book I have ever read. I had never read a book that was based on a school year. I also have never read a book with as many narrators as there are in this book.
I liked that there were seven narrators instead of a single narrator and that the narrators were the main characters. This writing style also appears in the Heroes Of Olympus and Kane Chronicles series by Rick Riordan, but instead of seven narrators there are three narrators in the Heroes Of Olympus and two in the Kane Chronicles. I would argue that there are actually eight main characters in this book Jessica, Alexia, Peter, Luke, Danielle, Anna, Jeffery, and Mr. Terupt is the eighth because he is the reason that most of the children bond with each other.
At first I thought the book was going to be about a class day with all the narrators, and they got a perty because Mr. Terupt let them have a party day because he thought they earned a reward and he let them have a day of fun as their reward. So the children decided to have it in the snow and then someone started a snowball fight with a single snowball. My prediction turned out to be wrong. I was close with the party and them having it in the snow.
I really like the beginning where it explains what everyone feels like on the first day of school: good, bad, sad, excited, nervous, and so on. It also explains what they think it will be like, and then it describes what it is like, and in the end most of their assumptions are incorrect. I could believe that the characters in the book are real because to me they sound like they are your everyday fifth graders. Though I don’t think they are real because it is a fiction book but they are very realistic so I think they could have been based on real children or people.
Now for a quick summary: there is a new teacher at school. There is a math project where the students come up with “dollar words” which are words whose letters add up to one hundred (a=1 b=2 c=3 and so on until you get to x=24 y=25 z=26). Also they all read a book and because of the inspiration that book gave them they go down to the classroom for children with special needs and help the teachers. They get a free day, because the new teacher (Mr. Terupt) thought they earned a reward. Their free day doesn’t turn out being as good as they had thought that it would.
I think that the plot climax was the three months when after the free day. The author describes a lot about the snow while the story is developing and building up to the climax. I think he was purposely doing that to lead you to the day of the free day. I like that the chapter to chapter change was the same thing just from someone else’s perspective.
I also liked how the book went through the school year month by month, and within each month there was at least one event described by all of the narrators. So this made lots of mini stories within each month. But nothing was called a chapter. That really confused me about this book but the book was still very good.
Also I liked how the book was broken into part one and part two and all the months of the school year instead of it just being all one part because it made it easier to read (for me) because I had a place to put the book down if I needed to stop reading for a little while. There were always good places to stop, usually right after each month in the book. Also if my bookmark fell out all I had to do was remember the month that I was at in the book so I wouldn’t lose track of where I was.
A fun thing to try might be to take a whole school year and read this book month by month throughout the whole school year.
- Goodreads rating – 4.35
- DIGEST – Ardan