The Mammoth Academy

LEXILE 880

The Mammoth Academy by Neal Layton is a strange little book. Cute illustrations and a very quick read but not much substance. I thought it would be a good read-aloud for my dinosaur-loving summer school students, but references to body odor and hitting things with sticks are not necessarily topics I want to introduce to this group. Also, hard to believe the high Lexile level.

Note: For some inexplicable reason our "going-into-fourth-fifth-and-sixth-grade" boys loved my Junie B. Jones read-alouds this summer! Go figure.

The Thirteenth Tale

LEXILE 840

Hmmmmm ... there's a lot going on in this book, and I think I liked it. Not totally and completely, but it did hold my interest, and I am still digesting parts two days after I finished reading it. So it can't be all bad. Weird and odd and a little disturbing but not all bad.

I liked the writing style, the gothic sensibility, the mystery elements. I didn't care for the character development, the themes involving incest and sadomasochism, the disjointed pacing. I was pleasantly surprised by the clever story line and the tying together of all the loose ends during the final chapters.

All in all, I would recommend this book. Wish I'd had the opportunity to edit it.