The Homework Machine

Sad to say, my daughter checked this book out of her school library. These books may or may not be good stories but at least the one my daughter checked out had lines mentioning that a character's father had died in the war (Iraq War) and that it was sad because the "father didn't die for any good reason like in past wars" but instead died for oil.

As a veteran myself I am appalled that an author and schools would allow a book to be so freely available that says such things. What if my daughter had lost her father in the Iraq war? Would she appreciate reading that her father, brother, uncle or friend had died for nothing simply because the author has a political bias?

Keep political indoctrination out of our schools...regardless of which party is doing it!

After reading such good reviews about this book I was excited and really hoped to be able to use it in my own 5th grade classroom. However, I was underwhelmed to say the least.

As a teacher of 5th graders, I know what 5th graders talk like. Even if you stretched to 7th or 8th grade, the vocabulary and the sentences structure is beyond their speaking much less reading level. I really struggled to capture the characters in my mind because they seemed so unrealistic.

In addition, the plot was shaky. There are so many unanswered questions or pat answers given to real mysteries. Why were the police involved with a completely school-related issue? Why did the red light on the computer stay on? How does a "marketing agent" track down a 5th grader on a computer without having any previous contact through a chat room or elsewhere? How did this "marketing agent" know who was involved?

I think the final straw for me was the situation with Sam's family (I will not ruin it for those of you who still would like to read it). It was done in very poor taste. The situation with Sam's dad was given high drama and then disappeared within one or two pages. It was a cheap device and gives readers the impression that Sam's father did not mean much at all to him or anyone else for that matter.

I love the idea of seeing the action from different people's perspectives, but if I'm going to do a reader's theatre in my classroom with students, it will be a well done book that has fun, realistic characters, fine writing and a good story.

This book is about four kids who create a homework machine to do they're homework for them, but is this a gift or a curse? Their classmates begin to get suspicious and attempt to get them to admit it, but will one of them crack?

I enjoyed how everyone gets to express they're own point of view throughout the book, and how the author introduces different characters throughout the book. It's a shame that it didn't last longer, but then again I didn't stop reading it so that would be why.

The homework machine is one of my favourite books of this genre the layout is fun to read, Dan Gutman has exceeded himself in this book. I like how people that are completely different gradually over time become friends. This was one of the greatest books I've read in a long time. You have to read this book, beacause it is a brilliant read that will interest your kids and most likely yourself.

Yet another fun title from Dan, the man of Gut. Dan Gutman churns out children's books at the rate that brings to mind that "I Love Lucy" sketch involving the chocolate assembly line. His books keep coming and coming and it's anybody's guess on what the quality is going to be from time to time. Add insult to injury the fact that I sometimes get Gutman mixed up with fellow prolific kiddie author Dan Greenburg and it shouldn't be any wonder at all that I went into, "The Homework Machine" with a bit of trepidation. Still, I'd heard good things about this book. This is one of those titles that slowly but surely is gathering praise until someday you may not be able to say the word "Gutman" without the instantaneous image of a homework machine popping instantly to mind. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just a fun book that kids will adore and that manages to be simultaneously silly and serious while unwinding a truly interesting story. Whatever the case, this is certainly one of the best books of jolly old 2006.

It's all over now. What's done is done. The only thing left is to interview the kids themselves and get their side of the story. There's Sam Dawkins a.k.a Snikwad ("Dawkins" backwards) a.k.a Snik. He'd just started as the new kid in a fifth grade class at the Grand Canyon School. Snik's a little high-strung and testy to begin with. Then he and three other students are put together into a little group. There's Kelsey who doesn't care too much about school. More on getting her hair dyed pink. Then there's Judy. She's already aiming for law school and nothing's going to stop her now. And finally, and most importantly, there's Brenton. Brenton was the whole reason all this started. Brenton was the genius. Brenton was the kid who came up with the homework machine. At first, these wholly different kids become good friends through a single invention. But when all four start using the machine for their own homework every day, things start to get out of hand. Suspicions are leveled. People are betrayed. A mysterious stranger is stalking them. And worst of all, it seems like the machine has taken on a life of its own.

Now when I first heard the phrase, "homework machine", the first thing I thought of was that old Shel Silverstein poem. Do you remember it? It was featured in his collection, "A Light In the Attic", and for certain members of my generation it's near impossible to read the title of this book without hearing the words, "Just put in your homework, then drop in a dime / Snap on the switch, and it ten seconds time / Your homework comes out, quick and clean as can be / Here it is - "nine plus four?" and the answer is three". Of course, when Silverstein envisioned HIS machine, it was seriously low-tech. Gutman's the one who ironed out the tricky details like, "How do you fool a teacher into thinking it was written in your own handwriting?" or "Does it cost anything?", or even, "Wouldn't you just fail some tests and draw attention to yourself?". A lot of what I loved about this book was how perfectly thought out everything was. The characters were well-drawn individuals who could believably become friends in the manner that this story suggested. There's even a chess subplot that ties the whole thing together with a flourish.

One of the most remarkable things about this book, though, was its attitude towards our current war in Iraq. The book never says it's Iraq exactly. It doesn't have to. Ask any kid today about "the war" and they'll know instantly which one you're referring to. So when Snik's father is sent overseas to serve, you know where he's going. Two of the kids in this book are anti-war (Brenton has a nice speech about how supporting the troops is not the same thing as supporting the war that kills them). One kid is for it, partly because his father is serving in it. And finally there is Kelsey who summarizes her attitude beautifully after Snik's father dies in combat. "He was a good guy. Now he was dead. And for what? It wasn't like World War II, when America had to, like, save the world from Hitler. It was more like Vietnam. It was a war for nothing". In case you don't agree with the politics of this statement, please bear in mind that Snik himself is very pro-war. Heck, it gets him playing chess even. Of course, we never quite see what his attitude is towards war after his father's death.

Sadly, some ideas in the book didn't play out as well as I would have liked. The vaguely sci-fi twist near the end threatens to overbalance the otherwise realistic story. Plus these four fifth graders suddenly acquire a bit of puberty near the finish that caught me entirely off-guard. And why does the smart kid have to be Asian? I know he's counterbalanced by Judy, who's black and incredibly intelligent as well, but it still seemed a bit old-fashioned to make the resident genius of the Eastern persuasion.

That said, I'd like to tip my hat quite low to the good people at Simon & Schuster who gave this book's hardcover bookcover the design they did. It looks infinitely appealing. If I were ten, I'd depart with this puppy off the nearest bookstore/library shelf, pronto. I hope that there will be plenty of kids out there doing that exact thing. This is a book worth keeping and enjoying. It's smarter than you would expect it to be, and a heckuva fun puppy besides. Homework is dead! Long live Homework!

I asked a few of my middle school friends about homework:

Student One:

"I don't know. Some homework is boring. Well, most of it is boring. I mean just to bring my grade up I have to spend at least two hours on my homework. Well, actually I spend at least three and a half hours because I get distracted by my music and start singing along.

"I think everyone has cheated on their homework. I call my friend and ask for the answers."

Student Two:

"I don't like homework. I feel doing homework is a waste of time. We go to school to do work. We shouldn't have to work at home, too. What's the point of that?

"I hate homework even more in eighth grade because you get more of it to do. I used to often do it. Now I often don't do it.

"I think teachers give homework because student can piss them off so they give us a lot of homework to make us angry.

"I copy other people's homework."

Student Three:

"Doing homework sucks. School things should be done at school. We have to go to school about eight hour a day. Why should we spend the rest of the day doing homework?

"I spend about four or five hours on homework every night. I'm really slow at getting things. Sometimes I don't do my homework because I have sports, chores, or something that is actually important to do.

"I know that I'll have to try in high school and do the homework even if I don't want to.

"I do cheat sometimes. Mostly why I copy is if I forgot to do something. I never copy on essays or anything, but like math or fill in the blank things."

Student Four:

"Homework is useless and a waste of time. What's the point of homework? It's just frustrating and annoying. I think it is unnecessary because it wastes most of your social life. It leaves you no time to play with your friends.

"Yes, I'll copy someone's paper."

Student Five:

"I spend like ten minutes on homework. Sometimes I spend no time on homework."

Student Six:

"I really have always liked homework, except for in second grade because I hated my teacher. I never take or borrow someone's paper and copy it."

Student Seven:

"I don't like it; I never have liked it. That has never changed. But I still have to do it because my parents make me. "I'll get my friend's finished paper and copy it onto my paper."

I've always liked doing homework, myself. Being enrolled in an online MLIS program, where school is almost entirely composed of homework, works really well for me. But I also know from doing housework what it's like when you are faced with a task that feels like a total chore and you so wish you could do that task just once and not have to deal with it the next day and the next day and...

THE HOMEWORK MACHINE is presented in the format of characters taking turns narrating into a recording device the progression of events that have taken place over the past school year. The narration is being done at the direction of the police.

The story features four fifth graders from Grand Canyon, Arizona and their initial grouping is reminiscent of the randomness with which the student characters in The Breakfast Club are brought together. At the beginning of the year, fifth-grade teacher Miss Rasmussen creates the group:

"In graduate school, one of my professors told me that the children learn better when they work in small groups. I divided the class into six groups of four kids, and we pushed the desks together in those groups.

"I had no big plan to put Brenton, Kelsey, Judy, and Sam together. I did it alphabetically. All their last names started with D. We called them the D squad."

Of those four, Sam Dawkins (Snik) is the new kid in town, an Air Force brat:

"Somebody told me that the human brain isn't fully formed until we're about twenty years old. That's why kids do dumb things sometimes. And that's why we're not allowed to vote and drink and stuff. So can you really blame us for the dumb thing we did? I don't think so. Our brains aren't fully formed yet."

Judy Douglas is the ever-diligent student:

"The whole thing started because certain people who shall remain nameless did some thoughtless things that I don't need to discuss here.

"This is so unfair. I have almost straight A's and I'm in the G&T program. That's gifted and talented. I would never break the law or do anything dishonest. Things just got out of control. The next thing we knew, we had to go talk to the police."

Kelsey Donnelly is the pink-haired average student:

"Brenton's a dork, but he's a genius dork. I know he's gonna find a cure for cancer or win the Nobel prize of something when he grows up. If any kid could create a machine that would do your homework for you, Brenton is the kid.

"And what's so amazing about it, anyhow? They put a man on the moon, right? They grow babies in test tubes, right? So why couldn't somebody invent a machine that could do homework?"

The brilliant student, Brenton Damagatchi, whose father can get him free computer equipment from work:

"I knew I should never have told Snik. As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized it was a mistake. Secrets are best kept secret. That's why they're called secrets. If I had kept my mouth shut, none of this would have happened."

But Brenton does open his mouth and the events that subsequently unfold cause the quartet to become unlikely friends. The technology aspect of the tale is thoroughly plausible: Scan in the homework assignment sheet. Have text recognition software that transforms the homework into a series of queries. If a particular answer is not available on the hard drive then have the computer automatically retrieve cross-checked solutions online. Have software that stores handwriting samples, thus permitting the computer to print out the completed homework in the handwriting of each of the four students.

Brenton Damagatchi:

"It's not science fiction. It's pretty basic stuff, really. I'm surprised nobody else thought of it before me."

Judy Douglas:

"When that piece of paper popped out of the printer, I felt like I was witnessing a history-making event."

Beyond the central plotline of this fun and thought-provoking story, Dan Gutman has also folded into the mix a whole series of kid-relevant issues including popularity, fads spread online, and the war in Iraq.

Sam Dawkins:

"The red socks thing blew my mind! Think of it. This one kid took his computer and with a few keystrokes got just about everybody in America to do this dumb thing. It was cool! And that kid was sitting next to me. Think of the power! He could make every kid in America hop backward and recite the 'Pledge of Allegiance' if he wanted to."

Kelsey Donnelly:

"When I heard that Snik's dad had to go to the Middle East, I just started crying. I couldn't stop. It's like something opened inside of me. Everybody gathered around me and asked me what was wrong. That was the first time I ever told anybody at school that my dad died. I didn't want Snik's dad to die, too."

I'm just dying to team up with a fifth or sixth grade teacher and set up THE HOMEWORK MACHINE as reader's theater. It's a thoroughly entertaining read that is guaranteed to get kids and adults debating the issues relating to homework.

But for the sake of my middle school friends' sanity and social lives, teachers should remember to have their students write about THE HOMEWORK MACHINE during rather than after school.

The Homework Machine is about 4 kids who sit next to each other at Grand Canyon Middle School. Their names are Brenton Damagatchi, Kelsey Donnelly, Sam Dawkins, and Judy Douglas. Do you notice that their last names all start with D? Well that is why they are called the D Squad by their class. Brenton is a genius, Kelsey is a average girl, Sam is the average bully , and Judy is Brenton's friend. They all are bonded together with one secret: Belch. Belch is what they call The Homework Machine. They come every day to Brenton (The creator of Belch)'s house to `do' homework. They decide to keep Belch a secret, because if someone finds out, everyone will use it. But then, someone spills the secret of the homework machine. Who is it? You will have to read the book to find out. I thought The Homework Machine was GREAT! It's perfect for all ages, unlike other of Dan Gutman's books (Which are also good) that use the word Cr-p. Dan Gutman barley uses stereotypes, especially not the teacher. The lesson from the book is: DO NOT CHEAT!!!! Overall, I thought that this was one of the best books I have ever read (And I read every Roald Dahl book!)
END

By Joshua, age 10