Book Review: Pack of Dorks
Pack of Dorks
By Beth Vrabel
Age Range: 8-12
Sky Pony Press, 2015
If I could change one thing about parenting, it would be to have it commonly accepted that parents & kids should keep reading books together well into middle school. My fifth grader and I both read Pack of Dorks this past weekend (she first, me second) and it opened up so many excellent conversations about friendship, bullying, and having the courage to be your own person.
By turns hilarious, painful, and wise, Pack of Dorks is above all real.
It’s so easy to relate to Lucy, Sam, and April. We all know Beckys, and many of us have been Becky at one point in our lives.
I especially love how Beth Vrabel makes it clear that being a good friend is something you have to learn.
You will make mistakes. Other people will hurt you by making mistakes of their own. The trick is to grow past it.
As my daughter told me when I asked her if she would have given Becky a second chance, “I think you have to give kids a second chance. And a third. And a fourth. You never know when they will actually start meaning it.”
I don’t know if I completely agree. But it’s making for excellent conversations, and I’m learning a lot about how my daughter thinks and where she’s at on her middle school journey.
We will be talking about Pack of Dorks and the lessons we can learn from it for days.
And that’s one of the greatest things about reading books with your middle schoolers. You can break open some of these deeply personal issues from a not-so-personal angle. Not having to bring up the names of specific classmates is so helpful. Using book characters instead gives your child a chance to think about how he or she would respond before a similar friendship situation comes up in the real world.
Parenting would be much harder without books like this one.
(Parenting note: This book pairs especially well with Little Girls Can Be Mean by Michelle Anthony, M.A., Ph.D & Reyna Lindert, Ph.D.)
Related Links:
- Book Review: Little Girls Can Be Mean (Caterpickles)
- What’s The Seven-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
- What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
- What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
- What’s The Ten-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
- More Book Reviews on Caterpickles
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4 Responses to “Book Review: Pack of Dorks”
[…] Still, I’m a firm believer in parents and kids reading books together well into middle school. Talking about books is simply fun. And if the book happens to touch on an issue that your middle schooler is struggling with, it can create a marvelous opportunity to talk about some deeply personal issues from a not-so-personal angle. That gives your child a chance to think about how he or she would respond if a similar situation came up in the real world, and you a chance to dole out some parental wisdom without making your child think you are chastising her actual behavior. […]
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[…] Book Review: Pack of Dorks (Caterpickles) […]
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[…] In case you are looking for a more traditional middle school reading guide, Beth Vrabel has also posted a series of study guides for parents and educators to use in conjunction with her middle grade books, including The Newspaper Club and Pack of Dorks […]
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[…] In case you are looking for a more traditional middle school reading guide, Beth Vrabel has also posted a series of study guides for parents and educators to use in conjunction with her middle grade books, including The Newspaper Club and Pack of Dorks. […]
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