Bookworm Buddies

Pee Wee Scouts #30

by Judy Delton

Join the Pee Wee Scouts for fun and adventure as they make friends and earn badges.
Ready . . . Get set . . . Read!

The Pee Wee Scouts are going to get library cards. And in addition to a Reading Badge, Mrs. Peters is going to give a prize to the scout who reads and reports on the most books. 

But having a library card is a lot of responsibility. The Pee Wees are excited to check out new books, but soon there’s trouble. Tracy’s new library book has fallen through a hole in her book bag, Tim’s baby brother has colored his book, and Molly's dog Skippy ate hers. 

Will they get their Reading Badge if Mrs. Peters finds out? And how are they going to pay for the lost and damaged books? 

Genres: Childrens

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Born on May 6th in St. Paul, Minnesota, Judy Delton lived in her hometown for most of her life. She wrote more than one hundred books for children, including the popular Pee Wee Scouts series, which sold more than seven million copies. Her writing was often compared to Beverly Cleary or Carolyn Haywood for her ability to capture the essence of childhood.

For many years, Ms. Delton taught writing classes in her home. Today, those writers are having their own books published and remember her forthright instruction and critique with appreciation. Many writers have benefited from her handbook, The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.

Ms. Delton had four children and decided to quit teaching so she could stay home and raise them. Writing prolifically was her way of supporting her family. She died very suddenly of a blood infection in December of 2001. Her legions of friends and all those she taught were greatly saddened.

Reviews

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. Style too didactic and preachy, characters two-dimensional, situations predictable even as they are totally unbelievable. (How could a kid lose a whole book out of "a hole" in her bookbag and be blissfully unaware? It must have been a tiny book!) The adults don't quite come right out and chirp "Reading is FUN-damental!" but they might as well. The characters are flat, their backgrounds scarcely sketched-in. The adults are totally cardboard, limited to smiling, setting the rules and saying things like "well, I hope you learned your lesson!" kind of like a 1960s kid's TV series. The author goes for failed "diversity" by inserting one kid who obviously has dyslexia and another who (according to the illustrations, but not much indicated in the text) is in a wheelchair, but the promising thread of the kid who can't even read "stop" and "red" goes absolutely nowhere. As for the "song" and the "pledge" at the end--ugh.
I won't be bothering to find the rest of this series. No child I know would find this appealing.

[寿理 宮本 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firstly, I'll note it's always a little weird reading a book about kids who aren't interested in reading, haha.

Secondly, that Molly thinks Roger is cheating for reading board books and books for babies to get a higher score... *side eyes reading list* ...haha...

Something that occurs to me after having read the Pee Wee Scouts books I've read, though, is there seems to be a curiously high incidence of particularly unusual problem they encounter. For instance, this volume features the responsible reader who already HAS a library card having her DOG eat the book she checks out specifically for the Reading Badge. Something that presumably has never been a problem before... suddenly is, ESPECIALLY in conjunction with the other two who have their books 1. drawn in by a baby sibling and 2. lost on the way home. So they spend most of their time trying to solve those problems instead of doing their required reading/book report writing.

Something else that occurred to me while reading was I probably would have been much better about writing book reports if I had been told it was basically like writing a review. Heck, I could write a book report for every book I review! (Granted, for school purposes, it wouldn't be as entertaining to read as my reviews hopefully are...) Maybe I couldn't do it like Roger is with the board books, but I do definitely try to hit the 50-word minimum for the Top Reviewer charts, haha. (I mean, why not? If it's going to be tallied ANYWAY...)

Recommended for young book lovers! ...or not, because maybe they'll be as annoyed with these kids as I was, since HOW HARD IS IT TO READ BOOKS YOU WANT TO READ? *exasperated noises*

Edit to add: I'm a little frustrated by Ashley's declaration that "allergies are all in your head" regarding Tracy's hayfever, as someone who definitely tried to ignore certain fish allergies I have to once again eat trout like we used to back home, only to find out my allergies had graduated from mild itching to full-blown throat constriction.

True, SOME allergies could be psychosomatic, or your body's overcompensation against allergens—hence the popularity of antihistamines—but the way Ashley phrases it definitely makes it sound like, "You should never be sick, just WILL yourself to be better!" As if.

So that seems to be another thing about Pee Wee Scouts: It feels like there's always something treated as trivial that should actually be a Big Deal (or vice versa).

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I completely forgot about this series until one randomly popped up on my library e-book website. Such a cute series!