Gary Paulsen is one of those authors I admire. Until now, I hadn’t read any of his books, but I know that they strike that great balance between kid appeal and literary merit.
I don’t know if anyone would call Masters of Disaster a literary masterpiece, but I don’t think that’s what the author was going for here; however, it is definitely entertaining.
Henry tells his friends Riley and Reed that he is tired of living an unexciting life as perhaps “the most boring 12-year-olds on the planet,” so he endeavors to change it with acts of great daring, such as trying to break a world record (involving a definite act of daring — and danger — on a bicycle), and searching a dumpster for a new form of life, and investigating a haunted house.
The characters are the ones that you likely see in your own circle of friends and in your children’s: Henry is the mastermind; Riley is the record-keeper with the eye for detail; and Reed is the most nervous and timid, yet obviously the most easily influenced, who ends up in the dangerous and unseemly (and oh yeah — smelly) situations.
AUDIO NOTES:
In the intro to the audiobook of Masters of Disaster, author Gary Paulsen says that he was going to read the book himself, but Henry, Riley and Reed make him laugh too hard, so he was glad Nick Podehl agreed to do it.
Nick Podehl’s performance was perfect. His voices were nuanced, but not over-the-top. This intro was a nice enticement to keep listening, to see if Henry, Riley and Reed would make me laugh as well. I did chuckle a couple of times, but the real proof is that when my son Kyle was listening to it, I kept hearing him crack up.
CONTENT NOTE:
Kyle, a 2nd grader, is a bit younger than the target audience, and I hadn’t listened to the audiobook yet, but it happened to be on my ipod, and he needed a diversion, so I let him listen. There was nothing inappropriate really. A lot of the humor is typical boy humor, dealing with “doodie” and such. The stunts that the boys pull are so over the top that I think they aren’t going to inspire emulation, which could be a concern that parents of dare-devil kids might have as they read the plot. These boys are middle-school boys and one of the reasons that they want to get attention is so that girls will notice them, but there’s no real romance that will turn off kids who still think that children of the opposite sex have cooties.
Jennifer Donovan loves middle grade fiction for that vicarious return to the carefree and imaginative life of a child. She blogs at Snapshot.
It sounds such a great book for boys in particular! My son and I read Hatchet when he was in Grade 4, and we both loved it. Paulsen is a bit of a literary hero of mine. Great literature to me is books that engage kids and make them want to keep reading.
Glad to hear of this other Paulsen book.
I loved this book it was funny and the fact that they are trying to impressgirls is funny