The Handbook
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Jim Benton, bestselling author of Dear Dumb Diary and Franny K. Stein, brings us a fresh new middle grade novel about breaking all the rules!There's nothing Jake likes more than some good trash-picking, so when his elderly neighbors move out and leave an especially promising-looking pile of household refuse on the curb, he goes right for it. He only has the chance to grab one box before his mom catches him and orders him in for dinner, though. When mysterious goings-on begin to occur in the neighborhood, the trio investigates the hidden box from Jack's garage. In it, they find the Secret Parent's Handbook and with it all the means to subvert the irrational rules and petty tyranny of their home lives. No more clean rooms! No more vegetables! No more brushed hair or washed hands! It's all videogames and junk food all the time! But the authorities -- and the resistance -- have taken notice of the strange goings-on in Jack and his friends' neighborhood. And they are closing in . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this kooky neighborhood caper from Benton (the Franny K. Stein series), three friends discover the manual parents use to maintain control of their kids. Twelve-year-old Jack is tired of his parents bossing him around, and his friend Mike and neighbor/crush Maggie feel the same about their elders. Then Jack, who enjoys scouring his neighbors' trash for treasure, accidentally discovers an item that wasn't meant to be discarded, the Secret Parent's Handbook, which offers a master class in manipulation: "If the child has asked for something expensive, reply, Do you think money grows on trees?' That way you will have saved yourself from the unpleasantness of saying no and will have inflicted on the child a confusing question that will temporarily distract it from thinking about the object it has requested." After reading the handbook, Jack and his friends turn the tables on their parents, but they're soon caught between adult agents seeking the book and a kid-driven Resistance doing the same. It's slapstick comedy meets conspiracy thriller, and it makes a good case for better, more open parent-child communication. Ages 8 12.
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