Middle-School Cool

by Maiya Williams

Overview

Kaboom Academy, a new and alternative school for middle-grade kids, is chock-full of innovative methods of instruction and discipline that are soon to be tested on the middle-school students of Horsemouth, New Hampshire. Now, meet the class of Journalism 1A. These group of nine misfits are the staff of The Daily Dynamite, Kaboom Academy's quarterly newspaper. As their school year kicks off with a boom, literally, the students of Journalism 1A are about to discover what really goes on at Kaboom Academy and who's really in charge of this groundbreaking school for boys and girls who've fallen out of love with learning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385743495
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	03/11/2014
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	810L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

MAIYA WILLIAMS was editor and vice president of the Harvard Lampoon and a writer/producer for TV shows including Rugrats, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Mad TV.  She is the author of a time travel trilogy that includes the critically acclaimed books The Golden Hour, Hour of the Cobra, and Hour of the Outlaw. She lives with her husband, three children, two dogs, two guinea pigs, and a variety of fish in Pacific Palisades, California.

Editorial Reviews

The town of Horsemouth, New Hampshire has been unique only for its “unremarkableness.” Now it is about to put itself on the remarkableness map by opening a wildly experimental new middle school called Kaboom Academy, run by the mysterious Dr. Marcel Kaboom. The perplexed students who enroll there soon discover that they eat their books in pill form and play dodgeball not against each other but against menacing and maniacal balls. Students are disciplined by being hypnotized into thinking they are be snakes, turtles, or mealworms. The nine students in Mr. Mister’s journalism class, all misfits themselves, record the oddities of their new school as they prepare to launch the first issue of the Daily Dynamite. In the process, they do some investigative sleuthing to uncover the true identity of Dr. Marcel Kaboom. This book has some of the quirky appeal of Louis Sachar’s Sideways Schools from Wayside School, with a unified plot and empathetic back stories for each of the characters that explain their sometimes-problematic actions. Middle-school readers may well find themselves wishing they could sign up for Kaboom’s bizarre curriculum and forge the friendships that it fosters. Reviewer: Claudia Mills, Ph.D.; Ages 10 to 14.

Children's Literature - Claudia Mills

2014-01-04
Graduates of Wayside School will fit right in at the decidedly unconventional Kaboom Academy. The Academy is located in a former mental situation, staffed in part by former patients and dedicated to making students fall "madly in love with learning!" It offers literary classics in easy-to-swallow pill form, games of dodgeball in which the balls vigorously throw themselves, loud gongs and cannon fire instead of bells, and character-building lunches sprinkled with "curiosity," "honesty" and other "spices of life." The school also has a journalism class of nine young investigative reporters—including legally blind photographer Leo and telepathic former conjoined twins Aliya and Taliya—determined to winkle out all of the Academy's secrets. Williams weighs her episodic tale down with detailed expositions of the central cast's unhappy pasts and troubled domestic situations, as well as heavy-handed axe grinding in repeated rants against the boring, pointless, time-wasting experience of going to normal school. Nevertheless, the mix of out-and-out magic with far-fetched but logical twists creates an enjoyably surreal romp. Also, the author shows a knack for wacky inventions, from those book pills to the climactic arrival of an Invisiblimp. Middle schoolers will clamor for a transfer. (Fantasy. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews

05/01/2014
Gr 4–7—When an experimental new school opens in the town of Horsemouth, several parents are desperate enough to enroll their children in spite of the secretive—and frankly peculiar—vibe given off by the school's headmaster. Kaboom Academy does indeed prove to be highly unconventional, brimming with experimental educational practices in which the children are the guinea pigs. Wacky inventions abound, like autonomous dodgeballs, and a "multiplication table" that is literally a table—one that creates multiple copies of any object placed on top of it, including people. This school is anything but boring, as its student body, made up of misfits who have each been deemed unteachable in one way or another, soon discovers. Prompted by journalism class, the students begin to dig up the school's strange and disturbing secrets. The book's chapters often open with student newspaper articles investigating various odd or mysterious happenings. Among other things, the kids find that their school building used to be a psychiatric facility, and that several of its patients remain as teachers. This amusing and lighthearted story pokes fun at traditional education, while celebrating nonconformity, individuality, and even oddity. It takes the premise that middle school is a crazy experience at baseline, and runs with it. The overall goofiness, as well as the cartoony illustrations, make it a good choice for younger middle schoolers.—Emma Burkhart, Springside School, Philadelphia, PA

School Library Journal