Ten-year-old Pierre François—otherwise known as Pierre the Fantastic Flying Fish and Pierre the Genius Brain—is an expert at signing his school papers with original names. He’s also good at extolling the greatness of France, using weird words like “extolling,” dissecting owl vomit, and avoiding The Stinky Chair in math class. What he’s not good at is a foolproof bladder. Accidents happen, … Accidents happen, although this is Top Secret information. So when it’s time for the entire fifth grade to go to Adventure Camp, a two-night trip in the wilderness, Pierre would rather complain about the fifth grade meanies, dream of mastering the spelling bee with Jedi skills, and devise ways to meet the fascinating new girl in school. But Adventure Camp is coming for him, along with a wet and icy cold front. Can Pierre muster all his courage and wit to survive nature’s onslaught of ice, rain, and other liquid fiascos?
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I have spent decades working with children. I highly recommend this book for 6-12-year-olds – Especially boys who put up a fight when they old they need to read a book.
Pierre Francois is a wonderful character any middle grade kid would like to have as a friend. He is witty, can laugh at himself, adventurous, fun to be with, honors his parents, is proud of his French heritage, and loves to play tag. He also has a hidden fear that he is determined will not stop him from going to Adventure Camp with his classmates.
I really like that the language is clean. When. Frustrated, Pierre yells “EXPLETIVE” in a way that makes you laugh and understand that you don’t need to ‘cuss’ (as Pierre calls it). Don’t misunderstand me. Pierre is not a geek who lectures the reader. Instead, he is the kind of kid the reader will relate to and pick up on his personality as really cool.
The ending is excellent and heartwarming.
Pierre Francois is a comical, young, middle-grade novel that all my kids enjoyed hearing me read out loud to them during reading time. My youngest, age 6 especially loved that Pierre was a “big kid book” he wanted to read together because he was in a reading challenge. The point here is that Pierre appealed to my kindergartener, caused some giggles out of my 12 year old daughter, as well as a real LOL from my 14 year old son (Fart jokes reach a wide age range. Don’t tell anyone but my husband Iaughed too).
The brief synopsis on what makes Pierre so wonderful to me is that he’s a 5th grade kid, trying to figure out his place amongst the social dividing that already starts to take place (Keepie Ballers vs. Taggers), understanding the mean girls, meeting his first crush, avoiding the smelly weird kid in class that curses, all the while keeping a super TOP SECRET, a SECRET: his regular night time pee accidents.
As a kid who experienced the same night time dread, I felt for Pierre and definitely see the need for more stories that normalize this in a fun way. Aside from taking on this big ticket issue, Pierre himself is a unique MC – he revels in being half French, using unusually large words for a 5th grader (“self-preservation”, “expletive”& “sabotage”), and frequently has moments of grandour fantasty who signs his name “Pierre the Bold” & “Pierre the Flying Fish”.
The plot has a good pace for the age range. The kids in the story are stoked to go to a science based Adventure Camp. I love how Lori Ann Stephens was able to include STEM type moments throughout that were relative to kids this age. As I read this outloud to my kids, we were able to have talking points about “flora, fauna & scat searches”. Pierre has internal worry that he will have an accident during this trip which would out his super secret. I’ll leave what happens also, TOP SECRET.
What is most notable is how it ends and ties in the element of compassion in a way kids this age can understand. When the weird, smelly, cursing kid sticks up for him, Pierre realizes why the boy is this way (no spoilers) and has a moment of self reflection that almost seem to exceed his own Top Secret worry.
I also very much enjoyed the references to Star Wars and Minecraft. Another note about the teacher Mr. Sullivan (my LOL moment) because he sounded just like a teacher I actually had. When you read this, you will LOL too. Overall I highly recommend. This was a really fun family read.
3 1/2 to 4 Stars. This is geared more for kids but I enjoyed it. It did get a little slow at times but the ending was very sweet and moved it up a star.