It is a pretty good book and it was hard to put it down I would reccomend it to a lot of people but the constant foreshadowing can get pretty annoying and the charachatars don't talk like normal 11 year olds most of the time. ( )

A breakfast club for middle grade test takers. I enjoyed this book & see why it does well at book fairs ( )

My twelve-year-old came to me with this book and insisted that I read it. And I did, for him, despite much internal grumbling. I would have given up on the book several times as I didn't really like any of the characters in the beginning and at least one of the twists I saw coming several miles off, but I kept reminding myself that there must be a reason why my kid liked it so much and so I forced myself to carry on.

In the end, the valuing of things like art and stories and relationship over and above standardized test scores is a good message, but I feel like it was taken to an unreasonable and unrealistic level in order to make that point. Maybe it was an attempt to make things feel as big as they do in life to some of these kids, but raising the stakes so high turned me off as an adult reader -- because my brain was struggling between "that would never happen that way," and "if that were my kid's school, I would burn the administration and school board to the ground."

I imagine my kid identified because he struggles with a particular school official who values obedience over relationship and free inquiry. I can see why he liked this book, but it really wasn't for me. ( )

This book is amazing! Five 6th grade students who are all dealing with very different personal situations bond at an afterschool club that none of them really wanted to join. This book about family, friendships, and the pressures of life(including those awful standardized state tests) is wonderfully written and heartwarming. ( )