Freak the Mighty

It was pretty good I liked it a lot will the thing is I liked freak the most he was pretty good so the thing is that somebody’s dad was a killer Kane so he escaped from jail and almost killed someone, and he also killed his wife !!!

It took me a while to get into this book and I found it hard to picture the main character as 12 year olds as the narrator voice sounded much older and the children had a lot of freedom and no real boundaries. In the end I grew to love the main characters and enjoyed the read so it was worth persevering.

I read this book before putting it back in our primary school library to check its suitability as Accelerated Reader state that this is for children of 14+. Although there are some adult themes (a violent father, death of a friend), I am going to definitely introduce this to my year 6 cohort as I think there are some really strong messages. For example, the main character has decided he is stupid and has learning difficulties until his new friend helps him - so many lower ability children I teach have a fixed mind set and frequently tell me that they're dumb. I think this book could really open their eyes to possibility. The book also deals with perceptions - just because you are big and look mean doesn't always mean you are those things. It also deals with prejudice towards those with disabilities and how to overcome them. Although there is no happy ending in this book (which is so rare for a children's book), it does have a very positive message.
In addition, it is written by the child with learning difficulties so the style of the writing is conversational and filled with the language of the street which I think will appeal to a lot of children.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book and will be recommending it particularly to those boys who don't really see the point in reading as I think this will be a fantastic gateway book!

This book was written by a man named Rodman Philbrick. The real fun starts when a boy called Max pairs up with another boy called Kevin. {You could all him Freak}. Kevin is actually a cripple and he rides on top of Max. It is like having a piggyback. Max is about 9 feet tall while Freak is 2. He knows quite a lot about chemistry because on the 4th of June, he shouts out different elements when the fire-works go up. Freak's mother called Gwen was with Max's mum when she was pregnant. Freak is also rude in many ways because when Max came to their house for dinner, Freak called Max a moron becuase he was laughing so much at his jokes in the robot story Freak was telling. At the end, Freak says he got sulphuric powder in his chemistry set and fires it at Max's dad when he was going to kill someone. Of course, it was not sulphuric powder it was: soap, curry powder and vinegar! Max's dad was actually a murderer.