In addition to being a preachy tract about how bullying, even as mild as the "bullying" depicted in the book, is bad, it also has four plot holes, as follows:
1. There being a desk behind Wanda's, despite her sitting in the last row in Room 13.
2. Jack Beggles wearing a necktie, which suggests that the school has a uniform policy, only for the attempted costume porn in chapter 3 to make it clear that they don't.
3. Wanda is implied to be an immigrant whose English isn't very good, but she can describe colors as precisely as "cerise" and "jungle green."
4. How did Wanda's drawings get to school if she had been absent?
So, not a very good book in general. Louis Slobodkin's blurry, washed-out art style doesn't do it any favors.
Preachy, sentimental rubbish.
In addition to being a preachy tract about how bullying, even as mild as the "bullying" depicted in the book, is bad, it also has four plot holes, as follows:
1. There being a desk behind Wanda's, despite her sitting in the last row in Room 13.
2. Jack Beggles wearing a necktie, which suggests that the school has a uniform policy, only for the attempted costume porn in chapter 3 to make it clear that they don't.
3. Wanda is implied to be an immigrant whose English isn't very good, but she can describe colors as precisely as "cerise" and "jungle green."
4. How did Wanda's drawings get to school if she had been absent?
So, not a very good book in general. Louis Slobodkin's blurry, washed-out art style doesn't do it any favors.