Roxie and the Hooligans (Roxie, #1) by Phyllis Reynolds
Naylor, illustrated by Alexandra Boiger, 116 pages. Atheneum Books,
2006. $16.
Content: Language: G; Mature Content: G;
Violence: PG.
BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3)
– ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL:
AVERAGE
Roxie has grown up listening to
her Uncle Dangerfoot’s adventure stories and has memorized most of the survival
skills in her favorite book, Lord Thistlebottom’s Book of Pitfalls and How to
Survive Them. So, it’s a bit of a wonder
that Roxie can’t seem to survive the four bullies at her school, known as the Hooligans. One day their bullying is so brutal that she
finds herself in a dumpster, shortly before the dump truck comes to pick up the
garbage. Somehow Roxie finds herself and the
Hooligans being dumped into the ocean and marooned on an island with robbers. Roxie’s knowledge comes in handy and even if
the Hooligans have always been nasty to her, she rises above their meanness and
does what she was always destined to do-have an adventure.
My eight-year-old son and I couldn’t put this
book down. The adventure was well paced
and suspenseful. I loved Roxie and her
get-it-done attitude. My issue with this
book is that the bullying was awful. The
Hooligans made fun of Roxie’s ears, threw eggs at her, trapped her and taped
her ears down, tried to put underwear on her head and had her sick with worry
constantly. Also, the robbers on the
island threaten to slit the throats of anyone that they cross paths with, which
seemed really violent for a kid’s book. That
said, my son wanted to read every night and was totally into the story,
acknowledging along the way how mean the bullies were.
C. Peterson
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