What Would Joey Do?

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Summary: What Would Joey Do?
Review: "My dad showed up on a motorcycle and my mom who claims not to like him stuck a broom in the spokes yesterday as he buzzed our front yard and he ended up flying through the air and stabbing himself on a tree branch, so then I thought she liked him again but it turns out she didn't because later she tried to hit him in the face with a water glass in front of her new boyfriend." This is just one prime example of how chaotic Joey Pigza's life is.
This moving, yet comical novel brings you through the challenging moments of Joey Pigza's life. His goal throughout this fictional is to help everyone that comes in contact with him happy. Being a blind girl's classmate and "Secret Helper", putting all of the items that are out of order back in place at the grocery store, returning all of the lost dogs back to their home, trying to help his family become somewhat normal, and convincing his grandma that she will not die tomorrow, his grandma teaches him that he needs to stop trying to make the world happy, and focus on making himself happy.
Jack Gantos has written numerous books such as the Rotten Ralph children picture books. He is the author of many novels such as the series of the Joey Pigza novels, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key,Joey Pigza Loses Control, and What Would Joey Do? Jack Gantos also wrote Heads or Tails, Jack's Black Book, Jack's New Power, and Jack on the Tracks. Jack Gantos's writing style is easy yet fun to read as he keeps you so interested you don't want to place the book down.
I would recommend What Would Joey Do? to the fifth through the seventh grade student. This novel is fascinating to any gender. From reading all of the Joey Pigza books, What Would Joey Do? is a definite must.


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Summary: Humorous misadventures of an ADHD child
Review: "What Would Joey Do?" is part of the continuing saga of Joey Pigza, a young boy with ADHD. In this book he is ready to try being "Mr. Helpful" and focus his energy is positive manners. The problem is figuring out how he can help everyone while still moving forward with his life. His parents fight regularly and engage in dysfunctional actions, his homeschool partner is a blind girl who is full of mischief, and her fundamentalist mother has a total inability to deal with reality as every contact is focused on "What Would Jesus Do". His Grandma wants him to have a good friend other than his dog and seems to be the only one really concerned about the Joey within. However, she is dying and won't be there for him very long.

A real survivor, Joey's story is one of struggling and perseverance that pays off in the end. A story with several twists and turns it can be humorous reading. The greatest value of this book would be for parents to read the book and use it as a springboard for discussion of kids with ADHD. It teaches some things about children with ADHD as well as some aspects of how to deal with them. However, the book should be used as a catalyst for family discussion to prevent misconceptions. Before writing this review I let two fourth and fifth graders read the book to see what they thought of it. I found that they were getting some wrong impression from the book. It seemed that they thought that Joey's antics were in large part due to his family problems and that kids with ADHD all had dysfunctional families. Joey is a kid who tries as best he can to do the right thing and struggles through his problems to rise above them and that is a good story, just be careful of inappropriate inferences that children can make. It is a great platform for opening up a discussion about children with ADHD.

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Summary: a hyperactive child's refreshing look at life
Review: Dad is back in Lancaster, Pennsylvania causing problems for poor Joey Pigza, who worries that his dad Carter returned by roaring motorcycle to abduct him. However, he revises his theory to that of his father using him because he wants to either irritate or get close to Joey's mother. Joey's grandmother knows the world is coming to an end perhaps because of her emphysema, but more likely because Carter, who drives her nuts, is back.

Due to the game of my kid is better, smarter, or whatever than your kid, Joey finds himself, at is mother's insistence, joining Olivia Lapp at home schooling. With the urging of his "dying" grandma, Joey tries to befriend the sight-challenged Olivia, but his bratty teammate just wants to keep him in trouble. Between her and his family, Joey learns why a dog is a boy's best friend and wonders if hyperactivity out of control is better than trying to relate to these normal maniacs.

Apparently WHAT WOULD JOEY DO? is the final novel of the JP trilogy to the dismay of this reviewer because this tale, like its predecessors, is a refreshing look at life from the perspective of a preadolescent child coping with hyperactivity. The support cast is a distressing yet delightful group of lunatics, but the story line belongs to the title character, who makes reading fun. A personal plea to Mr. Gantos: please turn Joey into a teenager with hormones running amok because he is too good an individual to be shelved.

Harriet Klausner

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Summary: Whats with the language?
Review: My daughter is enjoying the book, but came to me the other night and asked about what a word on pg. 43 meant. Even if Grandma is a crusty old person who curses, should we expose this type of language to our children over 10? I was appalled to see this language used in this book. Any other concerned parents out there?

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Summary: Use Caution
Review: This book is intriguing and captivating BUT for kids that are not hyperactive, it is disorienting. My daughter is reading it for the second time. When we discussed it after she had already started, she said that she thought that two of the main characters acted strange and bad. She also mentioned that she thought that pretty highly of the medicated "patches" the child in the story uses and that she would like some.

This isn't good. I am very uncomfortable with books that make medication the answer to problems. For a kid on medication, this might be reassuring and positive. For a non-hyperactive kid, I think the message is very troubling.

I wish I had been more on top of what this book was about, BEFORE she had started reading it.

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Summary: A engaging story told through the eyes of "Mr. Helpful."
Review: When I first began reading this book, I was immmediately drawn in by the main character, a boy named Joey Pigza. Joey leads what appears to be a complicated childhood -- his parents are divorced & for a time his mother moved out and left him with his aging grandmother. Not only does his grandmother smoke too much, she speaks often of death and dying. Joey's only "friend" besides his dog, is a blind girl named Olivia who is always getting him into trouble. Joey's father doesn't make his life any easier -- he's constantly riding around the neighborhood on his motorcycle starting fights with his mother. Talk about a dysfunctional family! It's a wonder that Joey only needs a med patch for his hyperactivity disorder!

You would think that this is all too much for a kid to handle -- I do! But throughout the book, Joey manages to maintain strength and perserverance. Joey's qualitites include honesty and living life with a little humor. In his neverending quest to help others, Joey learns to help himself.

MyParenTime.com recommends "What Would Joey Do?" - I couldn't wait to read more of Joey's antics and see how he survived his next crisis. Even if you haven't read the previous two books in this trilogy, you won't want to miss this one.