I just finished reading Lucky Cap by Patrick Jennings. It is was a fast read for upper elementary students, primarily aimed at boys. The narrator gets a new cap with a brand name from his father's new employer and thinks it brings him good luck. Over the course of his first semester in middle school, he learns many valuable lessons about friendship, bullying and being true to oneself. But, there were a few things that bothered me about the book. Since the narrator was a 6th grade boy, there were occasional grammar lapses, particularly the expression: Me and my father, or some variation of that. While I know that this is how kids talk (and even some adults), I hate to read poor grammar in books for kids. Doesn't it just reinforce their poor grammar habits? What do you think?
The book is also a little boy-centric and has a few areas where I felt that girls were unnecessarily stereotyped. For example, when Enzo loses his special cap, he finds himself "bawling like a baby girl" and wiping away his "girlish tears." Come on, can't we do any better than this in the 21st century? Do we still have to portray girls as crybabies, even when it is the boy doing the crying?
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