The Misfits

Title: The Misfits

Author: James Howe

Stars: 5 out of 5

Summary: The Misfits is a story about five friends who feel like outsiders. They decide to start a new political party at their school and run for office.

                I really enjoyed reading The Misfits. Howe really sets up the scene by starting the story with Bobby at the tie shop. We really get to become connected with Bobby because of this. We feel sorry for him that he has to work at this tie store with a crazy boss, but at the same time we know that he doesn’t hate it all too much. To me the best part of this book was the characters and how well we got to know each and every one. Howe really gives us a sense of connection to every character even the small ones such as Bobby’s dad or Ms. Wyman . We get to know the characters on a deeper level. I love how this is one of the themes in the book: it is important to understand that everyone has a story and acts the way they do for a reason. I felt that throughout the book Howe was telling us to really get to know people. Down to the things that make us tick. I feel that this is really something that I connected with in the book. There was an paragraph on page 124 where Bobby told us how “This business of really knowing people, deep down, including your own self, it is not something you can learn in school of from a book.” I really believe this statement and I think it’s a great thing to talk to students about. The age where students would be reading this book is just the age where everyone becomes self conscious and just wants to fit in. This book brings up a great point at showing us that we need to love our differences. As children it becomes so natural to do everything just like everyone else, but this book shows us that being different, or a “misfit” it was makes you an individual, and it’s ok. There are so many ways that a teacher could teach this book. I would love to have my students dissect each character. Maybe make a huge poster or college showing different images that represent them. I think it’d be cool to have the students draw pictures of what they thing the character’s room would look like and bring in objects that the character would like.

                Howe had a great way of portraying Bobby through the narration. We really got to know him and how witty and funny he was. This was important to the story because we understood how painful it was when the other students would call him names based on something as superficial as what he ate for lunch. All of the characters in this story are dealing with acceptance and it is interesting how they all deal in different ways. I love the huge difference in the way Addie deals with her individualism and how Bobby deals with his individualism. This situation shows us that everyone is different and that it doesn’t matter. The No Name Calling campaign would be a great thing to get your class involved in after reading the story.  I love how the story shows us how hurtful name calling can be. By just addressing name calling the book makes the reader aware of what he or she is doing. I think part of the problem is at this age students are doing things without realizing the effect that they have on other students. This book puts us in the minorities place and makes us really get to know them and empathize with them.