My School Is Worse Than Yours

by Tom Toles

Raven Royce is not too happy with her school, since between the river in the hallway, the invisible math problems, and the robotic teacher, she has quite a lot to complain about.

80 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1997

Reviews

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny exaggerated account of the awfulness of a school with a robot teacher, dank halls, etc. Girl would like to make improvements but where to start?

[寿理 宮本 · Rating 4 out of 5]

As if to prove the title to be accurate, the story involves a literal death trap (or, at least, a veritable warehouse of OSHA hazards) of a school. The premise is as ludicrous as The Hunger Games in that I can't believe any sane parents would allow such an environment to exist for more than the day it would take their children to tell them about it. The Hunger Games at least has the "excuse" of it being government oppression. The school in this book is simply bad for no reason. Budget? Surely razing the place to the ground (or unearthing it, rather) would be preferable.

I admit I'm not a city planner and/or architect, of course, but just saying, DEATH TRAP.

OTHER than that, it's a cute (dystopian) story, and there IS a happy ending, somehow! The art is cute, too, which isn't surprising since it's Tom Toles.

It's worth a read, but I don't know how many kids I would recommend read this book, since the pages are pretty old. Still in good shape, but newer books are both better quality printing (for now?) and will last a few more readings going forward from the average young reader.