By Sally Warner
EllRay is the smallest boy in third grade, and his dad has promised him Disneyland if he can stay out of trouble for one whole week. That would be no problem at all if the class bully would just leave him alone.
EllRay Jakes is the shortest child in third grade, and Jared, the biggest, has decided that makes EllRay an easy target. There's shoving in line, name-calling, tripping, the whole daily grind of being picked on. Then EllRay's dad makes him a deal: stay out of trouble for one week and they'll go to Disneyland. The catch is that keeping calm while Jared torments him turns out to be the hardest thing EllRay has ever done, and every time he tries to stand up for himself, he's the one who lands in the principal's office. He's got to figure out how to be brave without swinging a fist, and prove once and for all that he's no chicken.
The reason this one works for a reluctant reader is that it's funny first and message second. EllRay's voice is quick and wry, full of the exact indignities of being small in a big grade, so a lot of children see their own school day in it. The chapters are short, there's a picture every few pages, and the stakes, a Disneyland trip riding on one good week, are pitched just right to keep the pages turning. It's also one of the too-few funny chapter-book series with a Black boy as the hero, so it works as a mirror for some children and an everyday window for others. And it's the first of a series, so if your child takes to it, there's plenty more waiting.