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bookph1le's review against another edition
4.0
Love these books, and I love the embedded message about the ridiculous things that are happening in the current educational system. This book has a lot to say about how little sense it makes to kill programs that nurture and encourage students' creativity, like art, music, drama, etc. in favor of endless test prep that does nothing to prepare our students for the future. The author also skewers the notion that these companies are doing a good thing by pointing out their embedded self-interest. It's no fluke that the same companies that make the tests are the ones selling the absurd prep programs from those tests. As one of the characters in the books says: "Your parents' tax dollars at work".
Think I'm overstating things? Companies that make educational materials are billion-dollar industries so, as with any industry, they're more than happy to cook up more and more unnecessary programs and sell them to schools, who are under constant pressure from lawmakers to improve.
I think the author is really tapping into the zeitgeist with these books. The series started out as a fairly typical middle grade series, dealing with the confusing problems of early adolescence, and continued on to explore how a soul-sucking educational experience makes school a misery for students, who spend the vast majority of their time in a classroom. How can anyone expect to foster a love of learning in kids when they're being implicitly told that the only thing that really matters are those little circles they bubble in with their number 2 pencils?
The book's dealing with the debate about whether graphic novels are "real" books is interesting as well. It dovetails with them overall theme that students are being shoved into boxes, expected to conform to the norms that adults have decided constitute the "educational experience". It makes sense that adults should be the ones establishing the overall parameters since we know what skills are necessary to acquire, but shouldn't students have some say as well? Is it more important for them to be forced to read Moby Dick at the expense of their love of reading, or are they better served if their instruction includes carefully chosen works of various forms that will appeal to a wider array of students and encourage a love of literature in its many forms? As with the student rebellion against test prep, this particular aspect of the book is another example of the old clashing with the new, and of a paternal attitude that insists that someone totally removed from a classroom knows better than someone who spends their time in a classroom each and every day.
Bravo to Principal Rabbski, even if her whole subplot is unbelievable. It's a fantasy that I imagine many teachers and administrators have entertained and would have loved to carry out themselves.
This is a great series, and I highly recommend it.
Think I'm overstating things? Companies that make educational materials are billion-dollar industries so, as with any industry, they're more than happy to cook up more and more unnecessary programs and sell them to schools, who are under constant pressure from lawmakers to improve.
I think the author is really tapping into the zeitgeist with these books. The series started out as a fairly typical middle grade series, dealing with the confusing problems of early adolescence, and continued on to explore how a soul-sucking educational experience makes school a misery for students, who spend the vast majority of their time in a classroom. How can anyone expect to foster a love of learning in kids when they're being implicitly told that the only thing that really matters are those little circles they bubble in with their number 2 pencils?
The book's dealing with the debate about whether graphic novels are "real" books is interesting as well. It dovetails with them overall theme that students are being shoved into boxes, expected to conform to the norms that adults have decided constitute the "educational experience". It makes sense that adults should be the ones establishing the overall parameters since we know what skills are necessary to acquire, but shouldn't students have some say as well? Is it more important for them to be forced to read Moby Dick at the expense of their love of reading, or are they better served if their instruction includes carefully chosen works of various forms that will appeal to a wider array of students and encourage a love of literature in its many forms? As with the student rebellion against test prep, this particular aspect of the book is another example of the old clashing with the new, and of a paternal attitude that insists that someone totally removed from a classroom knows better than someone who spends their time in a classroom each and every day.
Bravo to Principal Rabbski, even if her whole subplot is unbelievable. It's a fantasy that I imagine many teachers and administrators have entertained and would have loved to carry out themselves.
This is a great series, and I highly recommend it.
kerryzielke's review against another edition
5.0
My favorite out of the series. I love that it's the kids against standardized testing.
ali_brarian's review against another edition
5.0
My favorite in the series so far. It speaks so well to our current Common Core crisis - poking fun but with a sad hint of truth behind standardized testing. Princess Labelmaker saves the day though!
sandraagee's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars, rounded up. Solid addition to the series. This book focuses almost exclusively on the FunTime storyline (which seems to be more or less wrapped up now) and deviates a bit away from the episodic stories that let us get to know the students so well in past books. There are pros and cons to this, but I will say that I missed some of these personal stories. They're what has made the series really stand out and I hope to see more of that return in the next book.
Spoiler
Rabowski's transformation from the enemy to Princess Labelmaker was incredibly awesome and well-handled (I loved the labelmaker commentary and the way she is secretly given the case file), but at times it seemed a little bit too easy. This might just be me, but everything seemed to wrap up very neatly. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it did surprise me. Perhaps the fact that Angleberger is pumping out two books a year now has something to do with this? More editing time might have equaled tighter plotting.bethgiven's review against another edition
3.0
The conclusion of the story FunTime Menace storyline from [b:The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett|17802191|The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett|Tom Angleberger|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1366074312s/17802191.jpg|24903701]. Our whole family enjoys this series on audio and is our recent choice for road trips -- it's funny and we all think Star Wars is cool. I didn't think the ending was terribly realistic but it was still an enjoyable listen.
Parents: early on in this book is a chapter that centers around kids teasing another kid, calling him "gay" because he wears a pink shirt. While I was pleased with how Angleberger addressed the issue, we did feel like we needed to have a conversation with our kids about it all reflecting our values. Also (and this is true for all the books in the series): there are several words we wouldn't want our own kids saying (there is a LOT of "butt" in this particular book). Nothing I necessarily see as problems -- but parents should probably know about it so they can have age-appropriate conversations with their kids.
Parents: early on in this book is a chapter that centers around kids teasing another kid, calling him "gay" because he wears a pink shirt. While I was pleased with how Angleberger addressed the issue, we did feel like we needed to have a conversation with our kids about it all reflecting our values. Also (and this is true for all the books in the series): there are several words we wouldn't want our own kids saying (there is a LOT of "butt" in this particular book). Nothing I necessarily see as problems -- but parents should probably know about it so they can have age-appropriate conversations with their kids.
abstract_amber77's review against another edition
5.0
What a fabulous way to end the series. This book picks up where the last one ended, with the students of McQuarrie Middle School rebelling against the system in an attempt to get back their elective courses that were so unkindly taken from them in order to instead study an educational program that would supposedly help the school raise their average state standard test scores. This book is a testament to what is really important about education. I wish more teachers and administrators and public officials making decisions for our schools would read this series. When you combine the overarching story with Star Wars characters, it only makes the narrative that much more enjoyable. I don't know if Angleberger has an ideas for new books in the series, but he did a nice job tying up loose ends should this be the last of the Origami Yoda books written. I recommend the whole series to families with school-aged children. Reading these books with my kids was remarkably fulfilling experience.