Student Saturday: Unschooled by Allan Woodrow

 

Student Reviewer: Mako C.
Genre: Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction


This book was very enjoyable for me, as it wasn't too wordy and kept me interested. The book has 270 pages, and the two main characters are Lilly and George. Lilly and George are best friends in the book. Lilly is described as a happy, go-lucky, energetic girl. While George, on the other hand, is described as very neat and a germaphobe, he is constantly applying hand sanitizer in the book. The time during the book is never clearly stated, but the setting is clearly described; it takes place at Lilly and George’s school; they are in the 5th grade. It also sometimes takes place at Lilly’s and George’s house, but their school is the main setting. 

The main plot of the story is a 5th grade spirit week, where each day is something new and the final day is a field day with games. The 5th grade is split into two teams: the red team and the blue team. Each day the students compete to win that specific day, and the team with the most points at the end of spirit week is awarded a special prize. That prize, however, isn't revealed to the students until the end of the book, which arouses many wacky and weird ideas of what the prizes could possibly be.

This book reminds me of when I was in 5th grade, and we had a spirit week and field days. There weren't any prizes or teams, however. Each day was something new, and Friday was a field day; one of the days was a pajama day, and I wore a monkey onesie. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a lighthearted, good read. This book is very interesting and has a good plot. It is also really funny at times. I didn’t really have any expectations for this book, because I’ve never read any other book by this author, but if I did have an expectation for this book, it definitely would have exceeded my expectations