Runt review by muffin
Runt
by Nora Raleigh Baskin
Age Range - 8 - 12
Genre - Fiction

LitPick Review

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Age at time of review - 10
Reviewer's Location - Stow, MA, United States
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Middle school, Yikes! This is what goes through Maggie, Stewart, Ethan, Matthew, Frieda, and Elizabeth’s head on the first day of middle school. It seems like everyone has changed, different behaviors, people creating lots of school drama, and friends turning on each other. Things are so different in the middle school than they were in the elementary school.

Maggie and Frieda used to be best friends in elementary school, but now Maggie is friends with all the popular girls and they bully Frieda's friend, Elizabeth. Maggie and her friends basically ignore Frieda, and she's fine with that. In fact, Frieda would prefer to just hang out with Elizabeth, or just read a good book.

Elizabeth is an only child and has just her mom. Her mom runs an in-house boarding place for dogs for a living, and Elizabeth always smells like dog hair. Elizabeth is what you would call a little weird and that's probably why Maggie makes fun of her.

Then the are the boys: Matthew, Ethan, and Stewart. Ethan is a very quiet kid who has a love for photography.  Wherever you see him he always has his camera with him. His new friend, Matthew, is getting bullied by Stewart, the basketball legacy and so called “popular” kid in the sixth grade, yet everyone hates him because he is a bully. Matthew is the new kid and is very good at basketball, almost as good as Stewart, which gets Stewart a little angry until that anger grows into bullying and he bullies Matthew so much that Matthew lashes out at him and embarrasses him in front of the whole school.

While Elizabeth and Matthew are getting bullied, they think of revenge and when they should strike, and it just so happens that the sixth grade dance is just around the corner.

 

Opinion: 

I thought that Runt by Nora Raleigh Baskin is an ok book. The book just didn't really reach out to me. I thought that the book should talk more about Stewart's life at home . Maybe an epilogue would help readers understand the book's ending a little better, because I thought that it was a little confusing. It needed to explain more, not just the ending but throughout the whole book so other readers can understand it better too. I recommend it to readers who like realistic fiction and school stories.



Rating:
3
Content Rating:

Content rating - nothing offensive
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