Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life review
by Connor Brown


Good afternoon, my fellow friends! Today is Friday and my brother and sister plan to go to an Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas, but thankfully my Mom and I will try to make are own plans for tonight. I hope for it to be a definite splurge, but not to much to the point it'd seem were spending too much. Anyways, I thought that right now, it'd be a perfect time as ever to talk about a book that I've gotten into that has a film adaption coming out in the fall in October, and that book is simply called Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, written by bestselling author James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts, which has now become a series and, as I said earlier, has an upcoming film adaptation coming October 7, 2016.
  
But that's for another day, as we are going into how I got into the book to begin with. I remember seeing the trailer for the film that the book was based off of when I saw Zootopia as on of it's previews. This immediately sparked imagination and I remember buying the book at a Barnes and Noble in Sugarland a few months back, and now, I have that I've finished it, and let me tell you that I love it! It has it all; a creative and interesting story, memorable characters, sophisticated and mature writing, great-humor, imaginative-illustrations, and a simple yet poignant message of "normal is boring."
Now, on the the plot: the book is about Rafe Khatchadorian, a young boy who is just starting middle-school and is starting to have problems that come with adolescence; his sister Georgia is an obnoxious tattle-tale, his mom Jules works late hours at a dinner and has a verbally-abusive boyfriend whom Rafe nicknames "Bear", and he has a crush on Jeanne Galleta, who is also one of his only friends at school. So, in order to coup with his boring school-life, he then makes a plan with his best friend Leonardo called "Operation R.A.F.E.",which is sort for Rules Aren't For Everyone, in which he intends to break every role in the school's Code of Conduct. The books has a very intelligent and outright tone, meaning that Rafe himself is trying to break the rules at school because he's fed up with it's strict rules, and he also set some guidelines in order to become somewhat honorable and by that his one rule from "Operation R.A.F.E." is that no one gets hurt, but that go's about as well as you'd expect, and he also is willing to accept harsh consequences in hopes of a better life/future. But's not just Rafe that's also memorable. There's Jules, Rafe's mother who constantly has to deal with her son's trouble-making and her boyfriend's slob-like antics, but she does her best and is not ashamed to admit that she's done things he's not happy about like her son. There's Jeanne Galleta, Rafe's crush as well as one of his only friends at school who eventually finds out about "Operation R.A.F.E.", but is very understanding and is willing to help Rafe with his homework. Leo or just Leonardo is Rafe's best friend and is also helping Rafe come up with was on how to break rules at school and is also a HUGE plot-element that has to do with Rafe's family. Georgia is Rafe's annoyingly obnoxious and bratty sister who constantly argues with Rafe and is also a victim of Bear's verbel abuse, something that dose not sit well with Rafe. Speaking of which, he's just that; lazy, slobish, hot-headed, aggressive, and barley even cares about Jules or her children, but he dose at least make somewhat progress near the end of the story. There's Miller "The Killer", the school bully who serves as a major source of conflict and also steals his plans for "Operation R.A.F.E." to the point were Rafe beats him up. And finally, there's Mrs. Donatello, whom Rafe nicknames the "Dragon Lady", whom also serves as a source of conflict, but was later reveled to try and help Rafe and later turns out to be dead. Now, onto the book's creative-illustrations(as shown down here).

See what I mean? Despite having a black-and-white color, it's really nice to look at, thanks to illustrator Laura Park, who really put all of her passion into this book, making it feel more like a graphic-novel than a children's book, which I liked what she did. It really immerses you in these drawings as if they were done by some kid in middle-school, which is appropriate, seeing as how the main character is a talented drawer and loves to draw, just like me.

Now that I've seen how good this book looks, no you know why you should read it; it's got memorable characters, great-humor, excellent-illustrations, intelligent and thought-intriguing writing, and a solid message of normal is boring. I should also mention that, if you have a copy of the book, there are pages of previews of other children's books that James has done for, like the sequel to this book, Middle School: Get Me Out of Here!, House of Robots, Treasure Hunters, and I Funny.

And since this done by James Patterson(besides Chris Tebbetts and Laura Park), I'm really excited for getting into other children's books by James Patterson. But, since I'm more into classic literature and stuff by Scholastic, there is one book/series the I'd like to get into and it's THIS!

The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell

If there is anything, that I love just as, if not more than classic literature, it's mostly reading from books that are nowadays being republished for younger demographics, and this is one series that I'm DYING to get into and here's why: it's got a interesting-enough  plot, classic fairy-tale characters that we all know and love, and cool-looking locations that seem REALLY immersive that only a fairy-tale children's books series could have.

That's all for today. but I'll back to write on this blog.

See ya soon!