Just read…

Gordon Korman’s new novel Swindle also crossed my desk as a Junior Literary Guild selection.  (I’m new to using JLG so I don’t know what quality of books to expect.)  Swindle, while a very appropriate read for grades 4-6, isn’t anything special.  As I read I was having flashbacks to Dan Gutman’s baseball card adventure series.  Gutman’s series began with the very original Honus and Me and then continued as formula fiction.  But reluctant readers 4th grade and up love this kind of book and Korman’s Swindle will hold similar appeal.  The appeal was evident at the Scholastic Bookfair that completed yesterday at one of my 4-5th grade buildings:  it was the number one seller!

The main character Griffin Bing finds a Babe Ruth baseball card in a spooky old mansion just as it falls, literally, to the wrecking ball.  Always “the man with the plan” Griffin and his best friend Ben take the card to Palomino’s Emporium of Collectibles and Memorabilia where S. Wendell Palomino lives up to his namesake and convinces the boys the card isn’t worth much.  (S. Wendell = Swindle, get it?  It’s a stretch…) When Palomino shows up on the nightly news with the card the boys learn that they were cheated and Griffin hatches a plan which includes the help of several classmates to get the card back.  By Griffin’s standards it isn’t stealing if you are taking back what was taken from you. 

If a book can be unbelievable and predictable at the same time, Swindle is that book.  It has all the depth of a Disney Channel pre-teen drama.  For fourth through sixth graders, however, it also has the high appeal of a Disney Channel pre-teen drama, so I will be recommending it to students as a “fun” read. 

 Gordon Korman’s website