The Beast in Ms. Rooney's Room

We thought this book was great! It was amazing! This book is really interesting and enjoyable. The characters are Richard, Emily, Matthew, Drake, Alex, Kevin, Ms. Rooney and Mrs. Paris. The book mainly takes place at the Polk Street School. In the beginning of the book, Richard "Beast" Best was a regular kid and a left-back so he was still in second grade. He made new friends like Matthew who helped him with his spelling and Emily who helped him with his behavior. In the book, there was a contest for the blue banner. The blue banner is a sign that is given to the best class. Also, when Richard started Reading group he started getting more interested in reading. Then he had great behavior and he helped win the blue banner for his class. At the beginning of the book, Richard hated spelling and reading and in the end he learned how to spell and read. I recommend that other kids ages 7-11 read this book because it has an interesting story and it might relate to your life.

I thought this book was excellent because in the end Beast did his best! In the beginning, Beast was not paying attention. Beast was a left-back. I really liked when Beast helped his class to win the banner.

Giff set this series off to a good start with this book 1. I read it when I was 9. It came in the mail from Weekly Reader Books (my dad sent away for those for me!) Every month I got books in the mail and this was one of them. At the time I didn't know it was a series, though. A year after reading this book I could feel for Richard "Beast" when I, too, was left back (it was for circumstances beyond my control, but still!) In this book, Beast struggles to survive and fit in, suffers losing his friends, who advanced to the next grade and reject him. This book is so good!