4^th Grade and Up

(First Published 2007)

The fifth-grade girls and the fifth-grade boys at Laketon Elementary don’t get along very well. But the real problem is that these kids are loud and disorderly. That’s why the principal uses her red plastic bullhorn. A lot.
Then one day Dave Packer, a certified loudmouth, bumps into an idea — a big one that makes him try to keep quiet for a whole day. But what does Dave hear during lunch? A girl, Lynsey Burgess, jabbering away. So, Dave breaks his silence and lobs an insult. And those words spark a contest: Which team can say the fewest words during two whole days? And it’s the boys against the girls.
How do the teachers react to the silence? What happens when the principal feels she’s losing control? And will Dave and Lynsey plunge the whole school into chaos?

I enjoyed this story a lot more than I thought I would.

This whole silence competition starts because the main character, Dave, says that girls talk more than boys. In my opinion, people in general talk way too much.

I spent most of my school years wishing all the kids around me would stop talking. What annoyed me the most was when they continued to talk right in the middle of class and wouldn’t stop even when the teacher told them to stop. I wasn’t very social growing up (I’m still not), so I never understood why everyone had such a need to talk to one another (I still don’t).

Based on my own experiences, I find it hard to believe that any group of kids could be silent for that long. I might have been able to do it because I never had much to say anyway. I did find it interesting how the kids were able to communicate with three-word sentences, facial expressions, and hand gestures.

I was annoyed by the constant discrimination between the boys and the girls. The boys think they’re better than the girls and the girls think they’re better than the boys. If there weren’t so many books and TV shows that portray this message maybe people would stop thinking they are better than others just because of their gender. We are all human beings. Neither gender is better than the other.

This weeks’ Weird but True Fact about Talking

You use 72 different muscles every time you talk.