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Hi,

I am a 45 year old mother of 3, and this is the first time that I have done this. It feels kind of weird, but I really wanted to let you know how much I absolutely LOVED The Unteachables. Once Covid hit, I started themed days for “family fun” in the evenings and weekends. For one hour every Wednesday night, we have “Read Aloud Wednesday”, and instead of turning on the TV (and again for an hour each weekend day) for the last year, we have been having family read aloud. My oldest two are 14 and 16, and are big fans of your books (they currently have 6 of your books on their shelf right now, supergifted, restart, ungifted, and slacker just to name a few). Just because they want me to tell you, my 16 year old can’t pick a favorite, but two of his favorite books of yours is War Stories and Restart. My 14 year old really loved Whatshisface, but this is the first one that I have read.  I am not a huge reader and never have been, but love that my kids are (parenting win for me. 🙂 ). I have “struggled” with being interested and not falling asleep with many of the books that we have read over the last year, but with the Unteachables, even after read aloud was over, I was like “just one more chapter”. And I was the one reading, LOL! 

Anyway, again, this book was sooo fun to read. Praise for the underdog, Mr. Kermit and his class, but I was most excited about the parts that were soo unexpected; the twists and turns, the times where even I yelled aloud, “Whoa! I didn’t see that coming!” I absolutely laughed out loud and was so impressed with the flag on fire part and how you so cleverly figured out the words to use, that would create other words that were so funny once the fire starting burning some of the letters off, for example from, “Fire Ribbit, No Way, to Fire Ribbit No W!!! Maybe because I am a homeschool mother and a previous preschool teacher, I could not stop laughing at Ms. Fountain’s circle time and bunny tails program.  We were “whoad” also by how Dawn of the Dead’s son was the one who wrote the article to save Kermit. We found it fun to see how you were able to create words for Parker with his dyslexia. Us trying to figure out the words and aweing over how you were so talented to find just the right words and mix up of words, was part of the fun. My kids (and even husband) liked guessing who was going to narrate the next chapter. Often I wouldn’t even tell them the title, I would just begin reading to see who would catch on first to who was narrating. This also showed me that they were paying attention. 🙂 

I loved the moral of the story, the way the teacher helped the kids just as much as the kids helped the teacher. I love that being so “different” made us all feel like we were still human and capable of our own great feats. I absolutely loved the forgiveness aspect when it came to Jake TerraNova and the bond of the step-monster and Kiana. 

Overall, this was absolutely a great read aloud for our family, and I just wanted to thank you for writing something that so fun for us to read as a family. I now know why my children (and many others) enjoy your books so much. I’m perfectly ok with their not being a sequel. I think it ended perfectly, and I look forward to reading more from you.