nothing+but+the+truth

Jeff Jones Reading in the Middle Grades 10-26-09

//Nothing but the Truth,// Avi, Orchard Books, 1991, 177 pages

Synopisis: Nothing but the Truth is an interesting story written in documentary form. It revolves around a central character, Phillip Malloy, who is in the ninth grade and seems to be a relatively "normal" child. Phillip is athletic, adventerous, and generally makes pretty good grades in school. Phillip's only holdup is that he sometimes has problems with discipline, especially in Ms. Narwin's english class. Ms. Narwin is described as an older, somewhat strick high school english teacher who generally does not have many problems with discipline. The big conflict in this story occurs when Phillip is reassigned to Ms. Narwin's homeroom class and he starts humming the national anthem aloud in what seems like an attempt to get attention from his classmates. When Ms. Narwin asks Phillip to stop and he refuses he is sent to the office. Phillip returns to class the next day and continues this same behavior. The act of repeating these actions even when asked not to eventually gets Phillip suspended from school. Upon hearing that his suspension from school is essientially for humming the national anthem (or being patriotic as some in the story describe it) Phillip's parents contact a candidate for the local school board who then in turn gets in contact with the media. This story eventaully gets nation-wide exposure and leads to some very passionate talks between the teachers, parents, administration, and others. Because this book was written in documentary form it was able to show many different perspectives so at one point or another the reader felt as if the victim may have been any number of people. Towards the end of the book, the general public labels one person over the other as the victim.

Evaluation: I think that this was a good book. It outlines the importance of classroom management and shows how even small behavioral problems can snowball into bigger issues. As suggested by the title, this book also shows people the effects and importance of honesty. In this story Phillip had some areas in which his account of some events seemed a little less than true. Honesty, and the effects that our actions have on others, are both important life skills to learn that will stay with readers far beyond their adolescent years.

Author's view on adolescents and society: Avi's view on adolescents throughout this book seemed to have a kind of "boys will be boys" feel. Even though Phillip was made out to be a bad guy in this scenerio he never seemed to be in danger of getting punished by his parents or by society as a whole. The only people that really showed him any kind of discipline for his offenses were the school officials. I considered this very interesting throghout my evaluation of the text. Avi paints our society as one that is not afriad to give second chances. I, personally, think that everyone deserves a second chance and this very concept is displayed rather clearly at the end of the book when Phillip is given a second chance at school but is given this chance in a different enviornment.

Reccomendation: I would reccomend this book. I considered it to be a preety easy read as well as a page turner. Because this book is written from the male perspective I am not sure how well it would be recieved by a class that is prodominately female even though the themes and lessons throughout the text were unisex. I definantly think that this book is directed more towards middle school students than high school students and would reccomend it to them and then follow it up with a debate or some other activity that encourages outside thinking to supplement this text

Jeff Jones