Julian the Mischief

Do you like realistic fiction books? If so, then you will really enjoy the book “Twerp” by Mark Goldblatt. Julian, the main character, gets into weird situations because he always does what his group of friends do. One of the weird things Julian did was make homemade fireworks with his friends and then blow them up. This was unusual because most kids don’t make homemade fireworks. Surprisingly, they didn’t destroy anything, but a firework hit Quentin. His eyebrows were off of his face for a couple of weeks!

The reason “Twerp” is a realistic fiction book is because the things that happened were things that actual sixth grade boys would do together. Additional characters that appear most often in the story are Lonnie (Julian’s best friend), Jillian, Eric, Shlomo Shlomo, and Eduardo. Julian didn’t want to do a Shakespeare project. To get out of doing it, he had to write about something he did to an 8th grader which had him suspended. His teacher wanted to know what happened, so Julian filled a bunch of composition books. Lonnie asked Julian to make a love letter for Lonnie. Julian did, but something interesting happened! The lesson I learned from reading “Twerp” is don’t always follow the crowd because you might get yourself into some trouble.

I give this book a 4 out of 5 star rating because it was an awesome book. I liked the book because it was very descriptive. On the downside, there are parts in the book that are mentioned more than once and weren’t as important. I would recommend this book to 5th and 6th graders, because of how challenging the book is. If you like this book you may enjoy these books too: Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney, Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell, and Stick Dog by Tom Watson. I hope you enjoy “Twerp” as much as I did!

Our January Book Club selection is "Don't Stay Up Late." Hopefully, you will read along with us! Please share your thoughts and questions below.