Children's Review: Miss Klute is a Hoot!

Miss Klute is a Hoot (My Weirder School, 11) by Dan Gutman, illustrated by Jim Paillot, June 24, 2014. 112 pages. Published by HarperCollins. Source: publisher.

The reading scores at Ella Mentry School are way down, so Mr. Macky has decided to hire a special new helper to whip the kids into shape—Miss Klute, a Labradoodle! A.J. and his friends don’t understand why they have to read to a therapy dog every day at story time, until the first time they do it. Suddenly everyone wants a turn reading to Miss Klute! But when the kids decide that Miss Klute is spending too much time inside listening to stories—that their therapy dog herself needs therapy—they let her outside, and all chaos breaks loose!

Perfect for reluctant readers and word lovers alike, Dan Gutman’s hugely popular My Weird School series has something for everyone. Don’t miss the hilarious adventures of A.J. and the gang.

First Sentence:

My name is A.J. and I hate reading out loud.

This review has been a long time coming as sometimes the words just refuse to be found. While it has taken me sometime to sit down and write this review, I did really enjoy seeing how the author tackled the *gasp* dislike of reading that some children experience.

As I have only read two books by Dan Gutman in his My Weirder School series, I cannot say on a whole my thoughts on the series in general. What I can say though is that Dan Gutman definitely does a good job of making these books accessible to younger readers in both his writing and what he's writing about.
   So, in the eleventh installment of My Weirder School, the story tackles a dislike of reading and how the kids teacher sought to help them learn to enjoy, not just, reading but reading aloud to their fellow classmates. I thought it was interesting because there are some people who hate to read, either because they don't like the book selections or something, and to see a book aimed at the younger kids that was there to help encourage them to read, well, that's splendid in my book. I liked that it was light and yet had some undertones of responsibility dashed into the plot with the children taking care of Miss Klute.

While I really enjoyed the plot line, as, well as the hilarious Miss Klute it was the writing the pulled me in. Even though this books are definitely more appropriate for readers between 6-10, I still found them to be quite fun to read as the author is quite deft at pulling readers in with all the hijinks the kids get themselves into.

Final Verdict: Miss Klute is a Hoot!- So a fun age appropriate read with illustrations makes this a must read for young kids.

Miss Klute is a Hoot! earns

This book was received in exchange for an honest review.