Rating: WARTY!
Illustrated well by Carla Tracy, this young children's story is about eighth grade student Kevin, who is prone to some extensive daydreaming. He actually reminds me of Calvin, of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, or of James Thurber's Walter Mitty. Sadly, Kevin's parents seem completely oblivious to his condition until it's stuffed into their faces, but his teacher is not. Her response to this has been the subject of some thought on my part. I read this twice and in the end I can't see how the "solution" really benefits anyone. Viewed in the stark light of that realization, I can't rate this as a worthy read because the overall effect of this book is that it feels like it meanders off into daydreaming itself!
It's really hard for someone like me to argue against a book which advises putting a pencil in the hand of a kid and telling them to use their imagination and write! I think that what bothered me is not that at all, but the issue of misdirection we see in play here. On the one hand, daydreaming is actually a fun and useful tool, but on the other, a decent education is a much more useful tool, at least for children of Kevin's age. The misdirection comes in the form of Kevin being advised by his teacher to write down his daydreams, without any effort being made to understand what is behind the daydreaming. Indeed, there's no follow-up at all by the teacher. She exits the story at that point.
Obviously no one wants to write a book for young children which takes them on a detailed tour of child psychology, so there has to be something to engage the kid and bring them into the story, but which kid today honestly daydreams about being a lion tamer? I think this was a misstep on the part of the author. It's different, yes, and maybe it's what the author dreamed about when he was in school, but is it really going to grab the attention of potential readers today, who exist in a world of first person shooter games, super hero movies, fantastic CGI, and personal smart phones which can be used to get instant news about any topic, and which can communicate with anyone anywhere in the world? Talking of daydreaming, just writing this has given me the idea for a story!
Even if this topic does grab a kid's attention, what are we offering them: the idea that it's perfectly okay to miss school and write instead? This is, in effect, what Kevin is doing when he's daydreaming and then taking time to write down his dreams, while the teacher, presumably, is continuing to teach the rest of the kids. How are the other kids going to feel about this privileged kid who gets a bye instead of discipline, while they have to study? And I don't mean discipline in a punitive sense here.
This obviously isn't a novel written for teachers struggling to engage their kids. It's aimed at kids like Kevin, but the daydreaming can be seen as a symptom of poor teaching technique or boring material, and none of this is addressed. It can also be seen as a problem with Kevin himself - or his home life, yet this isn't pursued either. It's like the teacher gave in, and indulged the child instead of trying to work through the problem with him. Asking him to write down his daydreams can of course be seen as a method of working through the problem, but it felt more like an indulgence, especially since it was not the teacher, but his parents who got to discover what he wrote down. This is a topic worth investigating and teaching children about, but I felt that rather than getting to grips with it in a useful and productive way, the author essentially ducked the issue and this is not a practical teaching technique. I can't recommend this.
