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Book Review:Max the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick

Title & Author:Max the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, Scholastic, Inc., 1998.

Length:163 pages; no illustrations

Print size:Fairly small; typical paperback-novel size

Other readability issues: The plot is straightforward but there is some travel involved and a fair number of different characters to keep track of. Characters are vivid enough for students to be able to visualize them, so making an illustrated catalog of characters as the book progresses would be a good strategy for this book. The setting is present day, the main character Max, a teenager so many students will feel 'right at home' with this book. Max happens to be an intimidatingly large person in LD classes, but LD issues are not a major facet of the book. In the opening paragraph he refers to himself as having feet "like the abdominal snowman," though; you may wish to explain the inference to be made from this and the difference between abdominal and abominable. This is the sequel to "Freak the Mighty" but stands alone, and in fact is less complex than its predecessor; consider reading this book first.

Summary: A self-proclaimed "wuss" despite his intimidating size, Max finds himself defending a girl named "Worm" and then is accused of kidnapping her. They flee across the country.

Typical words: Here are some typical words from the stories; it would be wise to see how many of these your students can read before expecting them to read independently.