Customer Reviews

The Fran That Time Forgot (Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a 2nd grade teacher who firmly believes that as long as a child is reading a book, then that book is a good book! I don't care if it's Captain Underpants, The Day My Butt Went Psycho, or Charlotte's Web. The only way children are going to become good readers is by practicing reading. The best way to make a child a happy reader is to give that child a book he or she is happy to read.

My son is going into second grade and is a relucant reader. He knows how to read, is good at it, but just doesn't want to do it. Jim Benton's Franny K. series is helping to change that. We just finished reading this entry, and my son was more than eager to help out with the reading so we could find out what happened next. The words might be a little difficult for most beginning readers, but the pictures are great, the chapters are short, and lots of funny things happen.

I'll be using the Franny K. series in my classroom this year, and firmly believe it'll help lots of reluctant readers become better readers.

I read Franny K. Stein - The Fran That Time Forgot by Jim Benton. It was a wonderful story. The main character was Franny and the setting was in her house where she made crazy inventions. Franny is a mad scientist who is just a kid. The invention that she made was a wristband that could make you go back in time.

The problem was that Franny's inventions were good, but her parents did not like them. They were terrified of them. The other problem was when Franny had gone back in time to her childhood, she told the little Franny to change her name to something different, but instead she switched her doll into a four-eyed elephant. Sadly, when she went back in time to her teenage years she had a different looking house and when she saw the Franny that time forgot she was stunned. She had invented a machine to clone the elephants to overrun the planet!

My favorite part was when Franny voice activated a cheese launcher to shoot a big cheese ball into her hand and then she stuffed it into the elephant's nose. I liked it because Franny is a mad scientist and she comes up with new inventions. Other people would like this if they were into funny and humorous books.

I have read another book by the same author, but this one was more interesting.

This is the first young chapter reader series I purchased for my 6 year old, and she loves it. The story is about Franny, a girl that is learning to adapt to other kids and their lifestyles. She is very awkward in the process, of course, as she is a mad scientist.

Franny loves science, and underlying this story is the theme that it's ok for a girl to be a geek. Don't be worried about the "mad scientist" bit. Franny isn't evil. She is a dabbler, liking bats and boogers, bugs and inventions.

The Franny series has captured my daughter's imagination. It is creative, unique, and something my daughter reads almost every night on her own. Franny has fueled my daughter's fire for reading.

There are no real scary aspects to the story. The monsters are silly, like huge lunch meat sandwiches, or fifty foot cupids.

If you are looking for a fascinating chapter book that captures your child's imagination, try Franny K Stein. My daughter wants more books! I have bought her the entire series, and she can't put them down. Her reading ability is growing in leaps and bounds!

My boys love these books! Franny K Stein, Mad Scientist, is a bit of a social misfit and no one understands her and her mad scientist creations, except maybe her dog, part-lab assistant Igor. In this 4th entry, she travels back through time to correct the injustice of having been given an thoroughly inappropriate middle name, with predictably disastrous consequences. The entire series is wonderful, especially for those children who have an affinity for mayhem and destruction and somewhat sarcastic humor. The illustrations are a hoot, too.

My 11 year old daughter likes reading, and did like a few of these books. She got a bit bored with them though.

My 7yo daughter loves this series. She has read every book in the series multiple times, and she follows us around the house reading the funny parts. Franny K. Stein tickles her funny bone and inspires a love of science. Her favorite book is #6, but she likes this one, too.

The Fran That Time Forgot is book four in this great series of adventures following one of the most interesting and well written child characters to come along in a very long time. For those already familiar with this series having come across a later title and wondering which of Benton's former books in the series to buy first, I'd recommend the masterpieces Lunch Walks Among Us, Attack of the 50-Ft. Cupid or The Invisible Fran over this one. The extremely high benchmark set by Benton's first three Franny books to be honest probably comes into my fact of not rating this book as highly.

I thought this book's story wasn't as well written as the former novels plus at times wasn't consistent with the overall series storyline, and kids pick up on this fact more than adults do, it may go over most of our heads but not theirs. I work as a library assistant and when I have asked kids if they enjoyed this book they have pointed these things out so if you buy this for your child they no doubt will too. Such as this book tells the reader Franny has participated in at least five years of her school's science experiments when she is neither old enough to have been there at the school for five years and the same age Fran that she is now in Lunch Walks Among Us was a new student to the school after her family moved to Daffodil Street. I'm thinking maybe Jim Benton wrote this one as a stand alone junior fiction novel a few years before deciding to write the Franny K Stein series which would explain why the previous ones are a lot better and not consistant with this one. This is where the editor should have stepped in before it was published and corrected the mistakes, but didn't.

As I said I work in a library and the success of the Franny K Stein series is huge. I've checked them out myself to see what all the fuss is about and these can be enjoyed by adults as well as kids a feat not always done by junior fiction writers, even in the books kids like. I didn't read these in order as there's a long wait for some titles so I'll point out they all have individual storylines so you don't need to read them in order either. Franny Stein is an interesting character who doesn't follow the stereotype little girl who plays with dolls, has tea parties with stuffed animals and the like that many authors seem to want to write about. No Franny is a very intelligent girl more interested in bats, snakes, spiders, monsters and her number one passion, being a mad scientist. Interests that gel with many a real life boy or girl these days and lets be honest, always have. The length of these books are fairly short and take my word for it these books are so good you'll probably want to get a few of them, if not the whole series. They seem to be a lot cheaper buying as a box set (where you get the first four, including this one) which at the time of this review seems to retail for about the same price as just two Franny K. Stein books. There are other books written after the first four so youll want those too.

In her fourth adventure Franny takes out first prize in the school science fair for inventing a plate that lets you have your cake and eat it too, but is outraged when everyone laughs at her middle name (Kissypie). She decides to expand the cake machine to allow her to travel through time and gives herself a more appropriate to her personality middle name. While there she tells her baby self never to let anyone laugh at her. Travelling through time to her visit herself in her teenage years she learns she has become an angry teenager and that her time travel visit to her baby self is to blame. Can she outwit her older self and save her future. You'll have to read and find out.

This series is wonderful. My daughter is 8 and has read every book in this series so far. She can't wait for the next one. I highly recommend these books.

I thought it was very good because Franny was very inventive and smart, her sister's were just like her. Franny made some very cool robots and machines.

kids that like humor should read this book.she was not normal.she did not like her name.she liked to make 4 eyed elephants.she was good in the end.
I am a 7 year old girl.