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A review by racham1123
The Next Great Paulie Fink by Ali Benjamin
3.0
Told in present tense POV of our MC Caitlyn with interviews spread out along the way between Caitlyn and her various new classmates/faculty. The point of the interviews? For Caitlyn to learn more about the First Paulie Fink, a trickster character who had been a student at the rural Mitchell school for several years now- and who wasn't enrolled in their district this year.
This book is about a competition put forth by the remaining 7th grade class, and judged by their new (and completely unbiased) classmate, Caitlyn. It's a really small class, like 11 students total. The completion? To find the Next Great Paulie Fink.
Honestly, the book is really bizarre. The characters are all over the place and it's like instead of having a school that has this one quirky thing the whole book is the quirky thing. It took me awhile to get into it/used to it. All that being said, I'm also not the target audience.
But there's a lot going on behind the quirkiness too. The seventh graders are learning about Plato and the Cave, the Greek Gods, and how history relates to their current lives at Mitchell. Mags, is a good teacher and she relates the kids everyday thoughts back to the lessons at hand.
You also learn with our our main character Caitlyn, that she was a bully at her old school. We spent a bit of time on Caitlyn making this realization and how to be better moving forward, but I would have rather seen this fleshed out a bit more given how many times Caitlyn thought about Anna (the girl she was mean to). I understand the message that we're given, that she knows she was wrong but isn't sure if she's ready to face that yet, and maybe she never will be but that's kind of a crap take a way too. I mean, Caitlyn was so scared when she started at Mitchell and she didn't feel like she was ready for that, but she took a breath and got through it. I guess I wish she had just taken the same chance on herself in apologizing to Anna. 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
I also don't love that we don't actually get a clear verdict on how everything pans out.
However, the 'bonus' content to support Caitlyns interviews was perfect, especially the last page of the student election. You know, when the ballot was rocked and the new student president of the seventh grade was a six-pound potato-shaped stone.
This book is about a competition put forth by the remaining 7th grade class, and judged by their new (and completely unbiased) classmate, Caitlyn. It's a really small class, like 11 students total. The completion? To find the Next Great Paulie Fink.
Honestly, the book is really bizarre. The characters are all over the place and it's like instead of having a school that has this one quirky thing the whole book is the quirky thing. It took me awhile to get into it/used to it. All that being said, I'm also not the target audience.
But there's a lot going on behind the quirkiness too. The seventh graders are learning about Plato and the Cave, the Greek Gods, and how history relates to their current lives at Mitchell. Mags, is a good teacher and she relates the kids everyday thoughts back to the lessons at hand.
You also learn with our our main character Caitlyn, that she was a bully at her old school. We spent a bit of time on Caitlyn making this realization and how to be better moving forward, but I would have rather seen this fleshed out a bit more given how many times Caitlyn thought about Anna (the girl she was mean to). I understand the message that we're given, that she knows she was wrong but isn't sure if she's ready to face that yet, and maybe she never will be but that's kind of a crap take a way too. I mean, Caitlyn was so scared when she started at Mitchell and she didn't feel like she was ready for that, but she took a breath and got through it. I guess I wish she had just taken the same chance on herself in apologizing to Anna. 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
I also don't love that we don't actually get a clear verdict on how everything pans out.
However, the 'bonus' content to support Caitlyns interviews was perfect, especially the last page of the student election. You know, when the ballot was rocked and the new student president of the seventh grade was a six-pound potato-shaped stone.