Benjamin Pratt & The Keepers of the School: We The Children
Andrew Clements, Illustrated by Adam Stower
★★☆☆☆
Summary
Benjamin Pratt is a carefree boy who is excited about an amusement park taking the place of his school building. That is he was, until the janitor gives him a very old coin with instructions to defend the school no matter what. Benjamin scourers the school with his best friend Jill looking for clues and to come up with a way to save their school. The new janitor is after them, and does not want them to succeed.
Review
This is the first book in a series by Andrew Clements. It had a pretty slow beginning and unfortunately didn't become exciting until the very end where there was no conclusion except to look for Book 2 of the series. I guess I will look for it later, but I'm in no real rush to do so.
Clements was one of my favorite authors as a kid because of Frindle, and I've used his book No Talking as a read aloud in my classroom. I like the real world scenarios about school and friendship that usually weave through the plot lines, and while not completely absent here, they are not up to the standards I've grown accustomed to in Clements work. I have to say that it seems like the publishers might have broken one good book up into a trilogy to cash in on extra book sales.
That being said, I would still recommend this to students in grades 3-5 if they like mystery and suspense because it is a wholesome and interesting book.
Publisher Stuff:
Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers
ISBN 978-1-4169-3886-6
Copyright 2010
