The misfits

I absolutely loved this book and think that every sixth grade class should get a chance to read it. It is great because it is written from the perspective of a misfit junior high kid himself. The boy is fat and gets called a lot of names pertaining to his size. It is good to see how normal his life is and to see that he is able to survive the name calling with the support of his friends. This teaches a really good message, that as long as you have friends, it does not matter how popular you are. The character development throughout the book is awesome for all of the characters. It would be great to do a character tracking activity with the students in order to lessen the confusion.
I love Joe and how his character develops slowly. It took me a while to realize that he was gay, which shows that homosexuals are very normal. The first thing that really caught my eye was the beginning of chapter 4, when Joe has the word faggot written on his locker and then a boy calls him a fairy. These are two typical words that are used to put down homosexuals. It is important for children to see how damaging something as small as name calling can be. I really did not like that the author made Joe so stereotypically gay. He loves the color pink and act very girly often. This reinforces stereotypes that kids may already have. I also did not like that in the end, Joe is able to reveal that he likes Collin and everything just works out perfectly. Everyone goes to the dance. This is not very realistic, because typically kids at that age would be very scared to come out, let alone tell another member of the same sex that they like him/her. Then, of course Collin ended up being gay also and was just as comfortable with going to the dance with Joe. This is very unrealistic.
This book is great because it teaches children that any kind of name calling is bad. All kinds of kids would be able to relate to the name calling, because the author includes so many different personalities. I really liked doing the activity in class, where we thought back on high school to think about what names we were called. It made me realize that even though "goody too shoes" is small and innocent, it did hurt me and I would have liked for the name calling to stop.
The book also teaches kids that if they want to make a change, they should speak up and fight for what they believe in. I love that Bobby, the quiet, shy kid, was the one with all of the great ideas. This could cause other kids to stand up for what they believe in.