THE JANITOR’S BOY

The author of Frindle and The Landry News returns with a touching novel about a boy who is ashamed of the fact that his father is the janitor at his school. Jack Rankin, 11, is a good kid who has always gotten along just fine with his parents. But when Jack starts fifth grade (temporarily located in the town high school in which Jack’s father has been the janitor for many years), the trouble starts. Some of the meaner fifth graders give Jack a hard time about his father’s job. “Must take a lot of talent to clean up a bunch of puke, huh? Sure wish I could learn how to do that,” says one particularly obnoxious classmate. In a misguided attempt to get back at his father, Jack puts the biggest gob of bubble gum known to mankind underneath a desk in one of the classrooms. The culprit is quickly discovered and Jack is sentenced to after-school janitorial gum patrol for three weeks. During his new extracurricular activity, Jack explores the old school building, discovering an underground tunnel with a secret apartment at its end—and also discovering that there are parts of his father’s life that he knows nothing about. But while the first half of this book is great, accurately capturing the voice of an 11-year-old boy, the second half works too hard to show us that Jack’s father is a good man who is more than just a janitor. What would be wrong with being just a janitor, a wonderful father, and a good husband? An enjoyable read and a good jumping-off point for classroom discussions about class and economic status in America, but too heavy-handed to be satisfying. (Fiction. 8-11)