Review: Melonhead

Title:  Melonhead

Author:  Katy Kelly

Illustrated by:  Gillian Johnson

Review Copy Provided by: Random House

About the Book:  Melonhead is my preferred name. Preferred by me, not my mom. She likes people to call me by my real name, Adam Melon. Luckily, it’s too late for that because when my friend, Lucy Rose, invented Melonhead, it caught
on fast.

Usually I am the one doing the inventing. All my life, which is 10 years, great ideas have been popping in and out of my melon head. Sometimes they work. This year they’d better, because our class is entering an inventing fair. My friend Sam and I are dreaming up plans. And Capitol Hill has a ton of places to find invention parts. We just have to make sure to get home on time, with no excuses. If we get first place at school, it will be Chantilly, Virginia Regionals, here we come! 

My Review:  Current day Denis the Menace, Melonhead is just funny!  I love Melonhead.  He is just a fun-loving, precocious, annoying, typical boy.  His ideas/inventions are just too cute!  What young boy wouldn't love this book?

The author really creates Melonhead and makes him come alive to the reader.  Reading this story made me think of some of the boys in my 3rd grade class.  They wanted to please, to have a great project, but sometimes they try so hard to come up with the best thing, that they miss the obvious one.  Melonhead and his friends work so hard to think up a re-invention when the real re-invention is right there in from of Melonhead, if he'd only stop long enough to see it.  Isn't that usually the way with young boys?

This was just a fun read!  I recommend it for elementary teachers, elementary age readers (boys and girls), and parents of elementary age students.  4 out of 5 stars for Melonhead.

Teaser Tuesdays - Melonhead

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week is from Melonhead by Katy Kelly:

"We need a great invention that will get us to Chantilly," Sam told my parents.  "It's already been invented," my dad said.  "It's called a car." (p. 68)

Would you share your teaser with us?