BDCHS Advanced Reading discussion

Name: Carson Owen
Title: Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie
Author: David Lubar
Rating (out of 5): 5 out of 5

Summary: This book is about a boy (Scott) who starts his first year of high school and he doesn’t think it’s easy. On top of that, he finds out that his mom is going to have a baby. Throughout the book, we learn that Scott gets bullied a lot and that he doesn’t know how to make friends very well. At the end of the book, he has two best friends (Wesley and Lee) and in the last chapter the mom finally has the baby so he has a little brother too.

Setting: The story takes place in a suburban neighborhood and at his school. His high school is a big school with lots of kids. Some of the teachers are nice and some are mean.

Characters: (1) Scott is the main character and he’s a freshman. He doesn’t have many hobbies he would probably be boring in real life. (2) Wesley is Scott’s friend that he makes friends with about half way through the book. You wouldn’t expect Wesley and Scott to be friends because Wesley is big and mean to other people whereas Scott is small and really nice. (3) Lee is another one of Scott’s friends. Scott meets her about half way through the book and she is really nice. (4) Vernon is the person who bullies Scott the most and he’s also the quarterback for the football team and he’s on the wrestling team. He’s mean to a lot of people. (5) Julie is Scott’s friend from Kindergarten, but she basically forgot about him. Between middle school and high school she changed a lot. Scott likes her now but she doesn’t like him, not even as a friend. (6) Scott’s parents are also two other characters in the book. His mom is nice and she’s pregnant. Scott’s dad is also nice (but he’s not pregnant). (7) Bobby is Scott’s older brother and he is basically the opposite of Scott. Bobby is big and he doesn’t get picked on. He likes to play the guitar.

Plot: The story is a little bit like a coming of age plot. We first meet Scott when he is new to the high school and really scared but by the end of the book he has found friends and he fits in better now.

Problem/Solution: The problem is that Scott doesn’t have any friends and he doesn’t want to have a baby in the family. The solution is that he makes friends and then he finds a way to tolerate the baby, but then eventually ends up liking his baby brother.

Theme: The theme is overcoming obstacles. Scott had many obstacles to overcome (including being bullied, not having friends, not wanting a new baby in the family) but he overcame almost all of the obstacles, except that he was still getting bullied at the end of the book.

Reflection: Overall, I liked the story because it was funny and it had “Tom Swifties” in it. That is when there is a quote from Tom and then an adjective of how he said it that makes a pun out of the quote. For example:

“I’ve been sliced in half,” Tom said intuitively. (page 44)
“I lost my legs right below the ankles,” Tom said defeatedly. (page 43)
“They are building new apartments down the road,” Tom said constructively. (page 34)

These Tom Swifties all have two meanings for the last word. Sometimes it took a while to get it, but once you got it, then it was funny

Did you learn anything from the story?: I didn’t really learn a lot from the book, but I did like learning about Tom Swifties.

Did you like the story?: Yes, I liked the story. It was funny and easy to read.

Overall comments: The book was good.