Customer Reviews

My Weird School #1: Miss Daisy Is Crazy!

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

My younger son (1st grade) really enjoys the My Weird School series by Dan Gutman. He is just starting to learn to read so the MWS series are books that I read to him at bedtime. We own 4-5 of the books and have checked out several more from our local library.

Pros: There are some very silly and funny parts, which encourage children to read more. My son loved Dr. Brad Has Gone Mad because Dr. Brad speaks with an accent. ("I vant you to look at zeez pictures and tell me vut you see.") Or when the teacher says to take out your reading log, AJ says, "I don't have a reading log. Who wants to read a log?" There are some educational parts (for example, the book about Presidents' Day, Mr. Macky is Wacky, "I'm James Madison. I am the 4th president--and the shortest. I'm about five feet four inches tall.").

Cons: The language in the book is not appropriate. Every book starts with "My name is A.J. and I hate school." My sons (1st and 4th) like school and I want them to continue to like school for as long as possible. I know they will at some point not like school anymore. I'd rather that they didn't get the idea too soon that they're "supposed to" hate school. So I when I read the book, I either just read, "My name is A.J." or if I read the I hate school part, then I'll try to counter that with, "That's too bad! School can be so fun!"

Every book also has several instances of name-calling, mostly "dumbhead." I usually don't read the name calling parts. If I accidently do read it or it's part of the plot, then I stop and remind my son that we don't call people names. Several times the main character will say, "Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her." AJ and another character Andrea are always bickering. "Maybe you'll finally get kicked out of school," said Andrea. "Your face should get kicked out of school," I told her. Again, as much as I can, I cut these parts out and don't read them.

With bullying in schools and rude behavior from so many people (kids and adults), do we really need children's books that encourage this kind of behavior? If the author could change the mean and rude language to more of the fun and silly parts, I would give this series 5 stars--and probably buy every single MWS book. But instead I give them a cautious 3 stars and wonder if I should stop getting any more of these books. I would never buy one of these books as a gift for another child.

I discovered Dan Gutman's Weird School series from tutoring a second grade boy who "hated reading." Not only did he like the books, I loved them!
Second graders are the crazy ones, and these books remind me of when I taught second grade. In fact, I think Dan Gutman must really be a second grader in disguise as a grown-up...

The first in a wonderfully entertaining series, Miss Daisy is a second grade teacher who needs her students to help her with things she is supposed to be teaching! Imagine the power Miss Daisy's class feels when they get to "help" their nutty teacher.

Fun for new readers and for parents to read aloud to pre-schoolers and kindergarten kids just adapting to school, Dan Gutman has a light touch in showing kids that school can be fun. With so much emphasis on standardized test scores it's great to see that there is someone out there reminding our children that reading can make you smile!

I've been teaching 2nd graders for over ten years and this book is one of my favorites to read aloud to them. The children in my class enjoy the antics of Miss Daisy and eagerly await each new chapter that we get to. The book leads to lively discussions among us about school, teachers, and children, and many of the students I teach have gone on to read and reread this book and others in the series.

Early grade chapter books are not meant to be complex; they're geared for younger readers who are just discovering that reading can by enjoyable. Gutman's book serves as a 'gateway' book that can lead reluctant readers (like the main character AJ) into the world of books.

CRITICAL NIT-PICKING NOTE:
Most of Gutman's book is right on target in terms of capturing the life of a second grader. One area he gets wrong is having the class talk about multiplication in the first week of school. I don't know of any 2nd grade classrooms where students understand multiplying that early in a school year.

We received this book as a gift for my daughter who is 7. We read some together last night with my 4 year old son, and all of us were not happy with the language. The first chapter is titled "I hate school". My kids like school, and I don't want them hearing about kids that "hate" school, or anything else! My daughter asked me to say "don't like" as a substitute for all of the times the word "hate" was used. Also the word "dumb" was used often, which is not a word that we like either. My kids seemed to not really like the book because of the language, and I think I will be passing this book on.

This book is the first in a series about AJ as he enters second grade. He hates school and so does his new teacher, Miss Daisy. AJ really hates math and so does Mrs. Daisy. She can't do math at all. AJ is shocked at Miss Daisy as are the rest of the students in the class. Miss Daisy doesn't know how to spell either!

My boys found this book very entertaining. I would hear all about what happens to AJ in this book when we talked over dinner. My boys loved to read aloud certain sections of this book to me in astonishment.

I would recommend this book especially to reluctant readers (my youngest) since it grabs their interest and makes reading fun.

This book is written by the famous author Dan Gutman. This book is good for ages 8-10. It is a really good book that I know you will enjoy.This boo is so funny. It is really funny. Miss Daisy is teaching second grade and she doesn't even know how to do anything. She is really dumb. The kids in her class are even smarter than miss Daisy. That is why the book is called Miss Daisy is Crazy. I hope for readind my review it will make you read this fabulous book. I hope you are going to enjoy this book.

We have the first two, and while to me they seem predictable and too easy to figure out what's going on/what's going to happen, to her it is fun to read about the silly teacher, about a silly school, and she likes reading them.

The book's central character is AJ who is not too fond of school, but really likes football. The teacher, Ms. Daisy, uses various tactics to get the kids in class to use math skills, to read, etc. The principal gets into a discussion with the class about if the school was not a school, what would it be? The kids decide an arcade - so the principal challenges them. If they (and they ends up being the whole school) read a million pages then he will turn the gym into a game arcade for a night.

The main reason that I'm not giving it 5 stars is that there are a lot of stereotype kids - the smart one, the jock, the jokester -who are more like caricatures than true characters. This works okay, but I wish that Mr. Gutman had added more dimensions to the characters.

Last, the reading level is slightly misleading. It says on the back of the book it is for 7-10 years. The story line is probably too simplistic for most 10 year olds (fourth or fifth graders), but the reading level is, at a guess, closer to what an end of third grade reader might be reading ... so if you have an advanced younger kid who could read it on their own it works well, or it would be good reading out loud for early primary grades. My just entering second grader reads at a fourth grade level so for her this is perfect, but others may find it frustrating.

My seven year old daughter, who is in 1st grade, is a pretty strong reader. She enjoys reading, but mostly books with lots of pictures. She was given a gift certificate to another bookstore besides Amazon (the nerve!) and I finally took her there this week to "cash in". At first I couldn't get over the retail prices for paperback books, especially kid ones! I finally got over it, as I wasn't the one paying. She chose this book, but it was slightly different as it's called "Miss Daisy is Crazy! and Other Stories". I believe it is the first three books combined into one paperback book.

When my daughter started to read this book I kept getting reports yelled out loud to me, "Mom, this book is really fun to read!", and "Mom, I'm on page 37", etc. I have never seen her enjoy a chapter book this much, ever. She took it when we went out on errands and was trying to read it as she walked. I told her this is not socially acceptable, but not until she almost walked off with the wrong person did she take this with any seriousness.

This book doesn't have a lot of pictures, but it does have some illustrations here and there. The font size is the right size for this level of reader, so it isn't intimidating as one cracks open the book to take a look.

In this age group there are several silly choices for book series, this one isn't any worse than any of those. My older daughter loved Junie B. Jones at this age, and that character is really silly. I don't mind the content much, as long as my kids are reading and want to keep reading. My older daughter still loves reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and she's in 4th grade. I am not as crazy about that choice at her age, but she does read other stuff besides that, so I'm okay with it.

I think that if your child is not quite interested in chapter books yet, this might push them over the edge to enjoy them. Since my daughter found a series that she really likes, I'm sticking with it!

My son loves these books. He actually wants to do his reading each day because he wants to know what happens in the story. The author creates characters that think and act like second graders. And the teachers in the book are really crazy. It's fun reading for kids.