Thursday, January 1, 2009

January Book Club: "The Homework Machine" by Dan Gutman

Our January book club meeting will take place on Thursday, January 8, at 7 pm. We will be discussing the book, The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman. This book has an intriguing way of telling the story. It is told in the alternating voices of four 11-year-olds as they make statements to the police. The children are all fifth graders in the same class at the Grand Canyon elementary school. They are about as different from each as any four kids could be, but they do have one thing in common--they have all been involved in a scheme to use a machine, invented by one of the group, to do their homework. Their plan takes many twists and turns and gets more complicated than any of them could have imagined. The book appeals equally well to boys and girls and is both funny and thought provoking. It is one of the ten books nominated this year for the Virginia Readers Choice Award.