HOME SCHOOL BOOK REVIEW
Book: The Great School Lunch Rebellion
Author: David Greenberg
Illustrator: Maxie Chambliss
Publisher: Random House Children’s Books, 1989
ISBN-13: 9780553155518
ISBN-10: 0553155512
Language level: 1 (nothing objectionable)
Reading level: Intended for grades 1-2 and evidently written to appeal to very childish minds
Rating: 2 stars (POOR)
Reviewed by Wayne S. Walker
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Greenberg, David. The Great School Lunch Rebellion (published in 1989 by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc., 666 Fifth Ave., New York City, NY 10103). This “Bantam First Skylark” book tells, in epic poem form, about a day in school when the children get so sick of the yucky food that they become involved in a food fight which turned into a full-scale revolt until one of them turned on the sprinklers to stop it all, and the whole school flooded with two teachers locked inside a piano. I suppose that this is an attempt by the author, who has also written a book Teaching Poetry to Children, to use something zany to interest children in reading poetry. I do not believe that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or William Wordsworth has anything to worry about from this competition!
Descriptions of the food are rather nauseating. The two teachers are pictured as totally incompetent morons. The punishment inflicted on the students is that they are not allowed to eat in the cafeteria for a year, which to them is no punishment. But Teddy, who usually brings his lunch anyway, is rewarded for getting the teachers out of the piano with a year of free school lunches, beginning with camel liver stew. Maybe this might appeal to someone, but I found it completely stupid and undesirable. The back cover says, “Cafeteria food–yuck.” Well, that is my feeling about this book, except that I think that I would rather have the cafeteria food!
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