I didn't blog this one when I first read it because I was zipping through choices for my 4th-6th grade book club. I just reread it in preparation of our book discussion and found I liked it even better the second time around. Julian "Twerp" Twerski is essentially a good kid, doing the things that sixth graders did for fun in the late 1960s: silly and sometimes dangerous stunts involving firecrackers and high places, made up games, running races, first crushes on girls, etc. However, one incident that went horribly wrong gets Julian and his buddies suspended from school for a week. The nature of the incident is not revealed until the end. The book is in the format of a journaling assignment made by Julian's English teacher in exchange for getting out of a writing a paper on Shakespeare. Julian hates Shakespeare. The teacher's ultimate goal is getting Julian to look at the incident that got him suspended and another kid injured. Eventually the journal writing becomes less of a homework assignment and more of an obsession. It takes until after the school year ends before Julian writes about the incident and urges his buddies to go with him to make an apology to the victim. It's a good story but some of the philosophical ideas Julian discusses in his journal are quite a bit beyond what sixth graders, even gifted ones, would think about (but is great fodder for book club discussions). And I didn't know any 6th graders in 1969 (including me) that studied Shakespeare.
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