Beam, Matt. Can you spell revolution?BEAM, Matt. Can you spell revolution? Penguin penguin, originally the common name for the now extinct great auk of the N Atlantic and now used (since the 19th cent.) for the unrelated antarctic diving birds. , Dutton. 272p. c2008. 978-0-525-47998-7. $1799. J Chris, an 8th-grader, hates all the rules of middle school, but not nearly as much as the mysterious new student, Clouds McFadden. Determined to bring about change, and inspired by the French Revolution, Clouds teams up with Chris and three other students to commit "acts of dissent An explicit disagreement by one or more judges with the decision of the majority on a case before them. A dissent is often accompanied by a written dissenting opinion, and the terms dissent and dissenting opinion are used interchangeably. ." Boris, for instance, sets out to change a teacher's dull instructional methods by instigating a note-taking strike, inspired by Gandhi, while Susan challenges the tyranny Tyranny Big Brother omnipresent leader of a totalitarian nightmare world. [Br. Lit.: 1984] Creon rules Thebes with cruel decrees. [Gk. Lit.: Antigone] Gessler Austrian governor treats Swiss despotically; shot by Tell. of the Magnas, a group of popular girls. Landry works at getting a teacher to stop picking on him, while Chris wants to improve the boring school assemblies. And Clouds ... well, in his efforts to fight student oppression he ends up becoming a tyrant tyrant, in ancient history, ruler who gained power by usurping the legal authority. The word is perhaps of Lydian origin and carried with it no connotation of moral censure. himself, like his hero Lenin, and it's up to Chris to fix the situation. Perhaps repeating history isn't a good idea, after all. This light-hearted tale about challenging authority should have great appeal to middle schoolers, though it appears to take place in a time warp time warp n. A hypothetical discontinuity or distortion occurring in the flow of time that would move events from one time period to another or suspend the passage of time. where no one uses cell phones or search engines, making it seem rather dated. Still, the concept of standing up for students' rights will be popular, and the touch of romance that Beam (author of Getting to First Base with Danalda Chase) supplies will add to the novel's interest. Paula Rohrlick, KLIATT |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion