Thursday, July 5, 2012

The Report Card: But Ds are so pretty!

The Report Card
By Andrew Clements
Audio, 180+ minutes (3 CDs)
Listening Library (2005)
Rating: Read it!

Synopsis:
Nora Rowley is a genius. The thing is, nobody but Nora knows that. Being so smart, Nora noticed early on, makes you stand out, and standing out was not something she wanted. Instead, Nora always tried to be exactly average. But now Nora has a new plan, and when she comes home with a bad report card, her parents and the school launch a massive effort to find out what's wrong. But that is exactly what Nora wants. All the attention is the perfect chance to prove how arbitrary grades are and that they don't matter nearly as much as everyone at Philbrook Elementary thinks.

Robot's Review:
I listened to this one as well. My second Andrew Clements book. This one is in a girl's POV...so the audio is spoken by a woman...with an at first weird voice. I guess you get used to it. But it's still a little "weird." You just have to hear it.

Anyway, again, brilliant genius child book. The main character is so smart. But she's trying to get bad grades. I enjoyed the book, but I was getting a little lost at the last few chapters. Might have been since I was listening to it. 

I found with this and the Frindle book that situations happen that are "unbelievable". As in yeah right that would never happen. Because  both get "big" groups of people to do something. Which seems unbelievable. But perhaps Andrew Clements is trying to tell kids that they do matter. Because, well, they do. Make things happen. Be brave. Make changes. You are important. 

One thing that stood out to me about the main character in The Report Card was that she was caring. And it bothered me that she told her mom that she wasn't a caring person. How could she not know that. Because it's OBVIOUS. OBVIOUS!! So it's one of those, annoying why did you try to honestly say that when you are smart enough to realize that that is not true.

Anyway, all that said, still enjoyed it and will be continuing reading more of Clements books. We'll see if there's that same theme in the others. 

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