Review for Franny K. Stein

As you may already know, I am now the Creative Literacy teacher at Mountain Way. Part of my job description is library book circulation, so I feel like keeping up with children's book is important when recommending books to teachers and students. I also like to keep the books I read to students current and fresh.

*Spoilers Included* 

Franny K. Stein Mad Scientist: Lunch Walks Among Us 

I love a good series! I like that you can get a student hooked, and then they have a list of books to read. I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter book. Franny is not your usual little girl. She likes all things gruesome, but not too gruesome! It´s a children's book. She starts a new school and quickly realizes that she is very different from the other kids. It portrays different in a fun spooky way. For example, the other little girls play with dolls while Franny prefers bats and ooze.  

In an effort to be more like the other kids, Franny changes everything about herself until she is unrecognizable. Everything seems to be going according to plan until a ¨lunch garbage can¨ mishap creates a monster that kidnaps the teacher. Franny has to go back to her spooky self in order to save the day. 

Saving everyone comes with a price the kids seem to be afraid of Fanny, and that makes her sad. Feeling like pretending to be something she isn't is a lost cause, she returns to school the next day back to Spooky Odd Franny. And to her surprise the other kids are excited and happy to see her. 

This book is great for themes like friendship and being yourself. I could see a bunch of great conversations coming from this as a Read Aloud. I will be using it as part of a unit I do before summer to get students thinking about summer reading. I read the first few chapters of a books in a series as a taste of many options for summer reading.