The Last Holiday Concert - Andrew Clements
The kids are in charge of the holiday concert.
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- Author:Andrew Clements
- # of pages: 166
- Publisher:Simon and Schuster BFYR
- Original Publication Date: 11/14/2004
- Genre: Fiction - School
- Hardcover: $15.95
- Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: 8-12
- Read Aloud: 7+
- Read Alone: 8+
Parents need to know
Families can talk about how the teachers in this book motivate their students. What do the teachers say or do to inspire the kids to work hard on their music? What's the end result?
Message
Social Behavior:
Consumerism:
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:
Violence
Sex
Language
Common Sense says
What's the story?
Reviewed by Amy Brotman
At first the students are stunned, then thrilled to do nothing during chorus period. But it dawns on them that if they don't do something they will look like fools at the concert. So they elect popular Hart Evans, who had shot Mr. Meinert with a rubber band in class just the day before, to be in charge, even though he doesn't want to do it. Now this socially talented boy and his soon-to-be-ex-teacher may have to look to each other to make a miracle out of this mess.
Is it any good?
Right now Andrew Clements is the king of the middle-grade novel, for four reasons. Nobody knows the ins and outs of elementary school life, and the workings of gifted students and teachers, as well as he does. Nobody writes endings so purely satisfying. Few are writing with this kind of depth and emotional complexity for this age group. And Clements is the leading, perhaps even the only, writer for kids of a genre one might call Realistic Fantasy (think "The West Wing"), in which things happen not as they do in real life, but as they should.
Readers won't be able to put this book down, not because it is filled with action and suspense (it isn't), or to find out if the villain will win (there are no villains), but because it is, from beginning to end, so completely delightful, so satisfying, so right. It's the kind of book that makes the reader sigh happily after finishing it, then turn back to the beginning and read it again, just for the pleasure of it. It's a book that thousands of music teachers all over the country will be given as a holiday present by grateful students, a book that may inspire both teachers and students to new ideas and new understandings of each other. And, in a time when both movies and books seem to take delight in trashing the holidays and making fun of traditions, it's a book that will surely become a holiday classic because it does neither.
From the Book:
"Well, just wait until December twenty-second, a little after seven-thirty. That's when the real fun begins. ... Because from this moment on, the holiday concert is all up to you. ... You don't like the songs I've picked? Fine. Pick your own. You don't like the way I run the rehearsals? No problem. Run them yourselves. You don't want to sing at all? Then you can just stand up in front of your parents and the rest of the school for half an hour and do nothing. Who knows what will happen on December twenty-second? Not me. Right now there is only one thing that I'm sure of. On December twenty-second a little after seven thirty in the evening, I will make sure that all of you are on that stage in the auditorium. What happens once you're there ... that's all up to you."
Other choices
Other Books by Andrew Clements
Frindle
The Landry News
The School Story
The Janitor's Boy
Things Not Seen
The Jacket
A Week in the Woods
The Report Card
Parents and kids say
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