SuitabookUnplugged
Gordon Korman
- Reading
- If peril or animal harm could be unsettling, preview the lizard, alligator and captivity passages. Afterwards, discuss whether the children’s actions solve problems responsibly and how friendship affects their decisions.
- Themes
- Friendship and teamwork: The children form alliances, care for the lizard and investigate together despite differing personalities and abilities. Co-operation and respect are presented as valuable ways for the children to handle problems.
- Rules, mischief and responsibility: Jett and the other children engage in burglary, boat-stealing, candy-bar selling and other misdeeds while pursuing what they see as a good cause. The story gives rule-breaking comic energy but also presents messages about humility, keeping promises and making things right.
- Changing beliefs with new facts: The children uncover suspicious activity, and the book stresses willingness to change one’s mind when new facts emerge. The stated message favours revising confident judgements rather than assuming one person always knows what is right.
- Worth knowing
- Violence and peril include a lizard biting caregivers, a mouse being eaten, children briefly held captive, mind control, threatening alligators, criminal extortion and risky misdeeds. Frequent butt and poop humour may also need consideration.