Dear Dumb Diary, My Pants are Haunted!
Written by Jim Benton
Reviewed by Isabelle M. (age 10)
Have you ever known someone that always looked for something to complain about? If you love to hate those kinds of people, then you will love reading Dear Dumb Diary, My Pants Are Haunted by Jim Benton. It is about a girl named Jamie Kelly. When she goes in her closet to put on some pants, she finds holes instead of back pockets and holes in the knees of every pair of pants. In her diary, she tells what she thinks and does each day to find out who is the troublemaker. You will have to read the book to find out who has been ripping Jamie Kelly's pants.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give this book a 10. I liked how the author made the book a diary. The dates helped me keep track of what Jamie does each day and what she thinks. The illustrations in the book are supposed to be Jamie's sketches. These show how things look to Jamie. The author also made the book funny by making fun of people like the popular girl Angeline and a girl named Margaret who bites her pencils. Jamie Kelly, the main character, even makes fun of herself sometimes in her diary.
Jim Benton isn't a middle school girl but what is unique about his writing is that most of his characters he has in the Dear Dumb Diary series are girls. I wonder how a man knows what middle school girls would think.
I recommend this book to girls in grade 4-7 because the Dear Dumb Diary series might be something a girl can understand better then boys. If boys pick up a Dear Dumb Diary they might not appreciate the situations in the book and how a girl would feel.