BOTM for January is FISH IN A TREE

[SaraKat]

Please add your comments about this month's book, Fish in a Tree.

[Sandy]

I loved this book. I am a elementary school teacher and it inspires me to be a better teacher. I would encourage other adults that work with children to read it.

That being said, I don't think most kids will love this book. I think that most kids will see it as preachy and just another lesson to learn.

[Louie]

I liked it but I felt like just when I started to enjoy it, it ended. Though it might have something to do with the fact that the book I read before Fish in a Tree was 655 pages.

[Carmel]

I read it about 2 years ago and loved it. It has been require popular in our Middle School Library - with 5th and 6th class.

[Rebecca]

I hope I can get to this—but probably in February.

[Jaylyn]

I loved this book as a middle grader myself I got to understand Dyslexia even more because I have a friend who has it and I think this would be a great read out loud book for students and you could make some great discussions for this with each chapter.

[Manybooks]

Liked but did not love the book, mostly because both the ultra positive teacher and the ultra negative main mean girl were too stereotypically good and bad respectively. And I was also wondering what exactly the time period of Fish in A Tree was supposed to be, for if the story is meant to take place in say the mid to latter 20th century, then Ally not knowing how to read read by grade six and no one being aware of this makes sense but if the story is supposed to take place now, recently, this becomes a bit more difficult to believe, as I would hope that in today's schools, teachers are keeping their eyes open for learning challenges such as dyslexia.

[Justine]

The character's voice and personality was strong and made this book page-turning. But I wasn't wowed by the characterisation and pacing. The antagonist and sidekick were stereotyped. If this were my first time reading a book about school bullies it would have been ok. But I have come across these characters so often the outcome was predictable. As for the pacing, while I liked the fact that everything was tied up nicely in the end, I thought it dragged on a tad too long.

[Manybooks]

Justine wrote: "The character's voice and personality was strong and made this book page-turning. But I wasn't wowed by the characterisation and pacing. The antagonist and sidekick were stereotyped. If this were m..."

I think that the stereotyping was what I found rather annoying as well, Ally's two best friends not quite as badly though as both arch-bully Shay and the "perfect" teach Mr. Daniels (who really is in my opinion just a bit too good to be true and too positively depicted by the author).

I mean, I have read many children's novels with bullying as a main topic, as well as novels that feature inspiring teachers and the most enjoyable ones have always been those where the bullies while indeed bullies are not totally one-sidedly bad and the inspiring teachers are not one-sidedly good. On the other hand, perhaps the intended audience, perhaps Middle Grade readers might not notice said stereotyping as much as I have done as an older adult, but actually, even when (aeons ago) I was a Middle Grade reader, my favourite novels always were those stories that were nuanced and where both the protagonists and main antagonists presented both positive and negative qualities and where even the heroes and heroines tended to make their mistakes (and that in Fish in a Tree, Mr. Daniels really ends up being described as the proverbially best thing since sliced bread, really does get a bit monotonous).

[SaraKat]

I agree with all of you who have said that the characters are stereotypical. The smart kid was waaaay too smart, the mean girl was too mean, and the sycophant was too ... sycophanty? :) Some of you said that the teacher was too good and positive, but I had the opposite thought. I thought Mr. Daniels was great and was disappointed at how awful everyone else working at the school was. I can't believe Travis and Ally got as far as they did in their schooling with no one thinking of dyslexia or referring them for testing.

[Jaylyn]

SaraKat wrote: "I agree with all of you who have said that the characters are stereotypical. The smart kid was waaaay too smart, the mean girl was too mean, and the sycophant was too ... sycophanty? :) Some of you..."


I always thought of the teacher and the mean girl but you are right Albert is way to smart you can do well in a subget in stuff but you can't know somethign about everything. He had to at least struggle in one thing like all students do,

[Melody]

I have to agree with everyone who said the characters were stereotypical. I loved the concept of the story, but for me, because the characters didn't feel real, the execution felt flat.

[Samantha]

I read this to my class a few years ago when it was a Mark Twain nominee. I really enjoyed it and my class loved it too. Definitely worth the read in my opinion.