By Dan Gutman
Hook:
"Police Chief Rebecca Fish, Grand Canyon, Arizona
Seen a lot of strange stuff go down in ten years working here. Probably has something to do with being so close to the canyon. Having a mile-deep hole in your backyard brings out the wierdness in folks." (p.1)
Snickwad's Ten Commandments of Homework
1. We live in a democracy, where we have freedom, right? We're entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So how can I pursue happiness if have to spend every night doing homework? Homework is cruel, totalitarian punishment created by grown-ups to take aways the freedoms of poor, defenseless children.
2. Nobody ever saved a life, won a war, stopped a crime, or cured a disease while they were doing homework. Think of all the good things we could be accomplishing if we didn't have to spend so much time doing homework...
4. Thomas Edison went to school for four months. He never did any homework, and look how he turned out...
8. I keep hearing that American kids are way too fat, and that's because we don't get enough exercise. For every minute kids are doing homework, we are getting fatter. Kids should be outside running around and getting exercise, not inside doing worksheets..." (p. 19-20)
"Then Snik let out this really loud burp and we all laughed. After we finished saying what a disgusting pig Snik was, Brenton suggested we nickname the homework machine Belch." (p.58)
"So school ends and we figure that's that. We got away with it. When we went into the principal's office for that meeting, we all played dumb. Homework machine? What homework machine? We pretended we didn't know what he was talking about. There was no evidence. Nobody could prove anything." (p.133)
Recommendation:
Have you ever found yourself making an unlikely friend? Or maybe you have been guilty of trying to take the easy way out of doing your work by copying off of a friend? If you can answer yes to either of these questions, you will probably find yourself making these and many other connections to the characters in The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman. In this story, four very different 5th graders become friends when Brenton, the class genius, invents a homework machine to complete his work each night. Of course, you can't expect that such a wonderful thing could last; after all, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! This story is written as a collection of testimonies and confessions for the Grand Canyon Police Department. Can cheating on your homework get you thrown in jail? Guess you will have to read The Homework Machine to find out!
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Recommendation by Mrs. Plantz
The Homework Machine
ReplyDeleteDan Gutman
The Hook:
“Sam Dawkins, Grade 5”
So one day back in September, Miss Rasmussen passes out our homework assignment just as the bell rings. I’m in a bad mood because it’s been a long day and I just don’t feel like going home to do more schoolwork. You know what I mean. And I look over at Brenton. He sticks the homework assignment in his backpack like it doesn’t bother him at all. You could give him 10 hours of homework and he would be perfectly happy. The kid is like a human computer. So I start in on him, saying he probably spends all of his free time doing homework. And he says something in that voice of his like, “Well, no, I don’t spend any time doing homework.” (p.1)
Recommendation:
Have you ever not wanted to do your homework? So you copied off your friend? Well, meet the D squad. in The Homework Machine, A genius kid named Brenton invents a machine that does his homework for him. He earns 3 friends that only became his friend because of The Homework Machine. They start spending a lot of time together, attracting a lot of attention. And attention is exactly what you don’t want when you’re keeping a secret. Before long, things start getting out of control, and the Homework Machine- code named Belch -becomes much more powerful than they ever imagined! Now the kids are in a race against their own creation, and the loser could end up in jail! Will they end up in jail? Read The Homework Machine to find out!
Hi.
ReplyDelete'awesome' is the only word I can use to describe your work.
ReplyDeleteBRAVO!!!