Greenwald, Tommy. Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Extra Credit.

Greenwald, Tommy.  Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Extra Credit.  Macmillan/ Roaring Brook Press  265p  $14.99  978-1-59643-692-3      2012      elm/ms                  VG-BN           Realistic fiction

                                   

Charlie Joe Jackson just got his report card and his parents are not smiling. His punishment is summer school, but not if he can get out of going.  Thus begins his plan for getting extra credit to raise his grades.  He is going to get all As –- well, not all As, maybe one B.  But he only has one quarter semester left before the school year is out.

As he begins to implement his plan, Charlie realizes that luck is not on his side, and every time he tries to win the teacher over he falls flat on his face and is in even deeper trouble.  Then his teacher offers him an olive branch and Charlie takes it, until he realizes he will have to perform in the school play. Everything seems to go from bad to worse, until he begins to see things in a new light.

To win you don’t always have to be perfect, but you do have to try!
This is a good, funny story with a good ending, and a book that reluctant readers just might enjoy.        

Middle school-Theater-Fiction, Humor                                                                                                                              --Magna Diaz