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A review by mrskatiefitz
The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School by Candace Fleming
3.0
I was looking forward to reading this book because I thought it was going to be a series of fable retellings set in an elementary school. Unfortunately, it didn't quite amount to that. Instead, this is a series of episodes that take place among the students of a badly behaved fourth grade class, taken over by an intrepid teacher named Mr. Jupiter, who himself attended the Aesop school as a child. Each chapter has a moral, but that's where the similarities to the traditional fables end. The rest of the book is a collection of puns, and fairly cheesy attempts at humor.
I was reminded time and again of Sideways Stories from Wayside School - to the point that I wondered whether the author looked to Louis Sachar for inspiration. Sideways Stories is much more creative and imaginative, however, with much more original humor. This book no doubt has an audience - the kids who enjoy the My Weird School and My Weird School Daze series will easily graduate to this book and its sequel, The Fabled Fifth Graders of Aesop Elementary School - but for me, it took on too much and then didn't deliver properly. I think I would have liked it a lot better if the fables weren't part of it at all - a funny book about kids in a silly elementary school would have been fine, but trying to fit in the morals and fables made the entire book seem disorganized.
One use I could see for this book, though, would be for teachers. There is a chapter in this book for so many events and benchmarks throughout the typical school year, it would make a great classroom companion for reading out loud at the start of new units, or whenever there is a little downtime. Kids with corny senses of humor - maybe third and fourth graders - will laugh out loud and relate their own experiences to the silly ones in the book. At least then the book is supplemented by classroom activities that give the humor a context.
Otherwise, I'd probably just recommend reading the Wayside School books.
I was reminded time and again of Sideways Stories from Wayside School - to the point that I wondered whether the author looked to Louis Sachar for inspiration. Sideways Stories is much more creative and imaginative, however, with much more original humor. This book no doubt has an audience - the kids who enjoy the My Weird School and My Weird School Daze series will easily graduate to this book and its sequel, The Fabled Fifth Graders of Aesop Elementary School - but for me, it took on too much and then didn't deliver properly. I think I would have liked it a lot better if the fables weren't part of it at all - a funny book about kids in a silly elementary school would have been fine, but trying to fit in the morals and fables made the entire book seem disorganized.
One use I could see for this book, though, would be for teachers. There is a chapter in this book for so many events and benchmarks throughout the typical school year, it would make a great classroom companion for reading out loud at the start of new units, or whenever there is a little downtime. Kids with corny senses of humor - maybe third and fourth graders - will laugh out loud and relate their own experiences to the silly ones in the book. At least then the book is supplemented by classroom activities that give the humor a context.
Otherwise, I'd probably just recommend reading the Wayside School books.