January Bookworms Meeting - Fake Mustache by Tom Angleberger

This past Thursday we had the very first meeting of our book club for grades 4&5 - The BOOKWORMS - at our library.  It went really well!  Attendance was a little less than I'd expected, but the girls that came had a really great time and we had some awesome discussions about the book. 

For this first meeting, I chose Tom Angleberger's newest book, FAKE MUSTACHE (check out my personal review here).  It is a hilarious book that manages to touch on some interesting moral issues and it isn't too long, so I thought it would be a great first pick. 

The girls agreed - HA! Victory to the Librarian...LOL. :) 
I was so pleased that they liked the book.  Things are so much easier when that's the case.  Anyway... they had a ton of fun plotting things like what they would do if *they* could hypnotize peolpe with fake mustaches! 

We had a little trivia contest, with blowpops as the prize for most correct answers, and then I had a list of discussion questions that we talked about.  Here are a couple quick examples:

*When you meet someone for the first time, how does what they look like affect what you think of them?

*If you could hypnotize people into doing things for you, would you?

*Have you ever read another book where an object had good or bad feelings or powers attached to it?

Some of their answers were pretty insightful, and some were downright hilarious!

We finished up the meeting by making our own fake mustache rings.  The girls loved it!!

(Photographic evidence, LOL!)

Next month: Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

Fake Mustache

Fake Mustache

by Tom Angleberger

 

Regular kid Lenny Flem Jr. is the only one standing between his evil-genius best friend—Casper, a master of disguise and hypnosis—and world domination. It all begins when Casper spends money from his granny on a spectacularly convincing fake mustache, the Heidelberg Handlebar #7. With it he’s able rob banks, amass a vast fortune, and run for president. Is Lenny the only one who can see through his disguise? And will he be able to stop Casper from taking over the world? (description from Amazon.com)

 

This is actually my "BOOKWORMS" book club (grades 4&5) pick for January. It's our inaugural book club meeting and I couldn't think of a better way to start than with something slightly ridiculous humorous. Stay tuned...after our meeting on January 17th, I'll post about the program and how it went!  

 

Anyway, I thought this was a funny, absurd book. I liked the friendship theme...poor Lenny trying to figure out if it's okay to turn in his best friend, who's apparently turned evil...and Lenny making a new friend, a very pretty, very cool friend...

 

Although Lenny is a great character and the story is funny, it's really Jodie O'Rodeo who steals the whole show here. She is a fun girl who can actually DO things.  She rescues Lenny a couple of times and bemoans the fact that she wasn't allowed to do real stunts on her TV show. I think she's a great role model character for this age group and can't wait to talk about her with the kids.

 

If you're just looking for a fun book to make you laugh, I would suggest this one...and for my librarian friends out there, I think you'll agree with me that any book that features a slew of school librarians hypnotised into breaking into a federal bank must be worth reading, LOL!

 

Full disclosure: Borrowed from my Library