Book Review: Book Tour for Misadventures of Phillip Isaac Penn

Everybody calls Phillip Isaac Penn, Pip. And usually they yell it at the top of their lungs. Sure he might forget to close the classroom mice’s cage door, or leave his mother’s hair dryer in bathtub (hey, it’s unplugged), and he might even make it so that Liar Lizzy gets caught, but that doesn’t make him bad. It’s just not easy being a kid.

Facebook Fan Page – www.facebook.com/misadventuresofpip

Goodreads page – http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11010453-the-mis-adventures-of-phillip-isaac-penn

Poster page – http://www.misadventuresofpip.com/

My Thoughts

This book is geared towards a younger audience of ages 9-12. I would go so far to market this book at more of the 9 year old level. The book was a very simple read with a pattern that would help most kids understand.

The novel takes the reader through a week in the life of Pip who is a kid who feels so bad for himself because everyone blames him for everything that goes wrong. The problem is that he is guilty 95% of the time. I think younger readers will enjoy the situations that Pip finds himself in, but as an adult I had a hard time feeling sorry for him because he did cause so many problems.

The characters are all flat characters which is typical of this reading level. The teacher is one who is not viewed in the best light. The teacher is a stereotypical character where of course she blames the wrong student. In the event of cheating Pip is blamed despite the fact that the other kid is wrong. We all have these stories from school where we were blamed for something we did not do, but being a teacher myself it does drive me crazy to once again seen teachers not being a good influence on a main character. Why do we always have to be cast to cause nothing but problems and not understand our students? However, for the sake of the storyline this had to happen for it to work. Additionally, younger kids don’t think this way and therefore they will relate more.

I really liked the discussion questions at the end. The story covers telling the truth, bullying, and dealing with things out of our control. This part I enjoyed. Pip despite his chaos that he creates does open up some communication channels that we could have with our kids about telling the truth, dealing with others who don’t treat us nice, and just learning to deal with the obstacles of life.

This was a very quick read with only about 96 pages. I think this is a good book for a much younger audience.

I wish the author great luck with her book and hope she has good success. I am glad to be part of the tour and asked to read the book. It was a nice change of pace from what I have been reading and enjoyed taking part.