94. Old School. Gordon Korman. 2025. 288 pages. [Source: Library] [3 stars, mg fiction, mg realistic fiction, multiple narrators, school, inter-generational friendships]
First sentence: "G....forty-seven." The community room buzzes as the players rush to cover the number on their Bingo cards.
Premise/plot: Dexter Foreman has been raised by his grandmother--for the most part--in a retirement village. He's never attended public school nor officially been recognized as being homeschooled. Unofficially he's taught by just about everyone at the retirement village. But he's been found out. Forced to attend school for the first time, Dexter has a rough time...until he doesn't. He goes from having no friends to the whole school rallying around him. Why? Because of an incident with a Swiss army knife and a vending machine. The knife gets him thrown out of school, but the students who before thought him weird, odd, different, now see him as awesome.
My thoughts: I have enjoyed Gordon Korman in the past. This one didn't quite work for me.
It has too many narrators in my opinion. Each chapter has its own narrator, but there aren't just two or even three narrators. And the chapters don't alternate in a pattern. The narrators: Dexter, obviously, Gianna Greco, Ms. Napier, Jackson Sharpe, Ronny Greco, Teagan Santoro (who really doesn't belong at all).
I also get that it's "cute" and "fun" that he can fix anything and everything at the school with his handy dandy Swiss army knife and the skills he's picked up from being around the senior community. But. I do see it as problematic that this new kid suddenly takes it upon himself to fix and repair ALL the problems at the school that is literally falling apart. True, in this fictional book he doesn't get hurt and no one else gets hurt with his construction/repair projects, but he's a kid. I also thought the quick reversal of the entire school's opinion of him was sudden.
© 2025 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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