When the Water Closes over My Head

Rating:
Summary: This book makes you "drown!"
Review: I am a fifth grade student at Waldron Mercy Academy. (S.J.G.)

This book was so good that I fazed out in class thinking about it! Donna Jo Napoli creates a masterpiece in just 90 pages. A boy named Mikey has three obnoxious siblings: Victoria, Calvin, and Julie. He has to put up with them on a trip to Iowa. By his standards, things can't get worse, considering that Calvin flushed his prized knife down the toilet, and Julie fed his ice cream to the dog. But things do get worse. He gets signed up for swimming lessons! This ordinarily wouldn't be that bad, but he is scared of the water, his bathing suit fills with water and balloons out, and his swim instructor throws him into the water!
Then one day Mikey hears a cry for help. One of his classmates is drowning! Is Mikey ready to risk his life?

Rating:
Summary: Good set up,but short chapters.
Review: I would give this book When the Water Closes Over My Head,by Jo Napol,an overall grade of four stares.Because it hade a littel room for improvment,it hade a vary good set up story behind it, and didn't just come out and say the plot.It hade a vary good pace and flow to it, and kept me interested.the most interesting part was when Micky was headed to his grandparents house for vacation.part of the deal with staying there was that he would have to take seimming lessons. Micky was scared of the water and at first he made all of the excuses so that e could skip out on swimming lessons. Later on in the book, he faced his fear and managed to overcome his hydrophobia. This teaches us that you can't always run away from your fears because they'll always catch up with you. Along with the good, there is almost always romm for improvement. I think this book would be better if it had lonker chapters. Most people like myself pace themselves at chapters to finish. If the chapters were longer, you could read less chapters. Read it for yourself and see what you think.