
Is Middle School Worse Than Meatloaf? It depends...
What if your garbage collector decided to become a writer? This book is absolute proof that he or she would have great material to piece together a story from everyday items, that could transcend everyday life. And in the hands of a good enough storyteller, the book might be something like Jennifer Holm’s Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf. Deciding to investigate the “stuff” of Ginny’s life—receipts, notes, memos, graded assignments, IMs, poems, cartoons, hallway passes, disciplinary reports, and more—Holm has created a hilarious, poignant, and fascinating portrait of a girl trying to make her way through a difficult year.

It's About More Than Just Learning How to Curse in Shakespearean English. Really...
Holling is sure that Mrs. Baker, his 7th-grade teacher, has it in for him. She suggests to the principal that Holling retake 6th-grade math on Wednesday afternoons. He is sure that she encouraged Doug Swieteck’s older brother to flatten Holling on the soccer field. And she must have evil designs when she tells him to clean the cage of Sycorax and Caliban, the class rats, who are huge and make sounds “that were never heard anywhere else in Nature” (p. 41). However, after Holling and Mrs. Baker begin to read Shakespeare, Holling, like Hamlet, discovers, “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene v). Holling’s real education has just begun.
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