I’ve read Kathryn Erskine’s books, Mockingbird, before, and this book is almost as good! It’s about a boy named Mike, who’s father is a genius, especially in math and science. His father wants him to be just like him, but Mike has a math learning disability. He tries to please his father, but when he gets sent to live with his great aunt and uncle while his father travels abroad, he gets the surprise of a lifetime. Poppy, his great uncle, hasn’t moved since the death of their son, almost four months, and Moo, his great aunt, watches imaginary movies in her car and calls it “Tyrone”, when she shouldn’t be driving anyways. But when Mike finds out that the town he’s staying at is trying to adopt a child from Romania, he jumps in, and figures out the true Mike in himself. This book is pretty good! :)
The Absolute Value of Mike
By Kathryn Erskine
| Interest Level | Reading Level | Reading A-Z | ATOS | Word Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grades 4 - 8 | Grades 2 - 4 | n/a | 3.9 | 54651 |
Mike tries so hard to please his father, but the only language his dad seems to speak is calculus. And for a boy with a math learning disability, nothing could be more difficult. When his dad sends him to live with distant relatives in rural Pennsylvania for the summer to work on an engineering project, Mike figures this is his big chance to buckle down and prove himself. But when he gets there, nothing is what he thought it would be. The project has nothing at all to do with engineering, and he finds himself working alongside his wacky eighty-something- year-old aunt, a homeless man, and a punk rock girl as part of a town-wide project to adopt a boy from Romania. Mike may not learn anything about engineering, but what he does learn is far more valuable.
Publisher: Puffin Books
ISBN-13: 9780142421017
ISBN-10: 0142421014
Published on 5/31/2012
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 272