Class Action by Steven D. Frank - ADVISABLE

Class Action by Steven D. Frank, 253 pages. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. $17.

Language: G; Mature Content: PG; Violence: G                 

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS - ADVISABLE   

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE        

Sam realizes with his large homework load he has very little time for anything else in his life.  He dearly loves to play the piano, but no time. He tries unsuccessfully to stage a protest in his middle school classroom but gets expelled instead. While serving his time out of school he befriends his neighbor a retired lawyer. The lawyer, Sam’s sister, Sam and several friends take on the school establishment to have homework declared unconstitutional.  It is an interesting romp through the legal system.   

It feels a bit stereotypical, all teachers are demanding and unfair, administrators are sneaky and corrupt. While reading this I was trying to get several classes through research papers, I hate to judge, at a different time or maybe a different reader the dialogue would come across as clever and bright and the story educational and informative. For me it felt unconstitutional to have to deal with whining all day at work and then come home and read it.        

Lisa Moeller, Teacher Librarian