CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices 2009)
Jon Scieszka’s enormously funny childhood autobiography not only tells larger than life stories about growing up with five brothers but more than answers the age-old question posed to writers, “Where do you get your ideas?” The tall volume looks like an oversize comic book, and while the text is divided into traditional chapters, the pages are illustrated with numerous photos, images, and scanned relics. The thirty-eight chapters are short—at most only a few pages in length. Practical chapter titles like “Home, Sweet Home” and “Schooling” give a broad sense of the wise-cracking stories they contain. “Cooking” begins: “I learned how to cook because I like to stir oatmeal more than I like to pick up dog poop.” From there Scieszka goes on to explain his strategy for chore assignments in his large family. In “Sorry, Mom,” he relates how roughhousing with his brothers often led to accidents: “You know that little bone in the front part of your shoulder? The collarbone? Did you know you can break that bone with just seven pounds of pressure?” A black-and-white school photo of his younger brother Gregg, complete with hunched shoulders, bow tie, and angelic smile concludes the chapter, along with Scieszka’s comment that “Gregg’s collarbone got good at fixing itself. I think we broke him three or four times….Which explains why we have a lot of pictures of Gregg looking like a third-grade pro football player.” Not to be missed is the hilarious index at the end, making this memorable autobiography one to be paged through again and again. CCBC Category: Biography and Autobiography. 2008, Viking, 106 pages, $16.99. Ages 8-13.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2008 (Vol. 76, No. 17))
Offering an answer to the perennial query about where his ideas come from, the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature looks back to his early 1960s youth. Fans will not be surprised to learn that, except for his mother (a nurse, fortunately) he grew up in an all-male household: father, five brothers and "even our dogs and cats and fish." The resulting memories include group pukes in the back seat, slipping toy soldiers into the Christmas crèche, playing neighborhood games like "Slaughterball" and idyllic summer expeditions into the woods around his grandparents' cottage—not to mention the pleasures of random dips into the household children's encyclopedia and spurning "those weirdos Dick and Jane" to "find out more about real things like dogs in cars and cats in hats." Illustrated with truly dorky school-yearbook photos and family snapshots, this account of a thoroughly normal childhood doesn't match Gary Paulsen's memoirs for hilarity or Tomie DePaola's for cultural insight, but it will draw chuckles of amusement from middle-graders (particularly less eager readers) and of recognition from their parents and grandparents. 2008, Viking, 96p, $16.99. Category: Autobiography. Ages 8 to 11. © 2008 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Maureen Mooney (Library Media Connection, January/February 2009)
Well written autobiographies are a pleasure to read and this book is no exception. Jon Scieszka writes about growing up in Flint, Michigan with his parents and five brothers with his own personal flair. Each brief chapter is sparsely illustrated with family photographs and clipart. Scieszka writes about his love of reading that continued as he grew older. Scieszka’s humor about his childhood will have the reader turning the pages to see what craziness he and his brothers will pull next. In fifth grade Scieszka’s class got in trouble when they were swearing on the playground. As a punishment they couldn’t leave the classroom until they wrote down all the swear words they knew. The scene is handled with humor, but several words may not be appropriate for a younger reader. This is a wonderful addition to the biography section and works well with other classics such as Roald Dahl’s Boy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1984) and Bill Peet: An Autobiography (Houghton Mifflin, 1989). Recommended. 2008, Viking Children’s Books (Penguin Young Readers Group), 96pp., $16.99 hc. Ages 9 to 13.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, November 2008 (Vol. 62, No. 3))
I learned to read by reading very strange books in school. They were brightly colored stories about a weird alien family. Nothing like my family of wrestling, tree-climbing, bike-smashing brothers.” Fortunately, those youthful disappointments didn’t put Jon Scieszka off of books, and he has now chronicled the experiences of that very same band of brothers in this inviting autobiography, where kids who share his suspicion of strange, orderly families will find themselves right at home. The book signals its style to the reader even before it’s opened—its cover, period design, and size echo young Jon’s beloved war comics, with the back cover mimicking their multiple-ad jackets (the “ad” blurbs are quotes from chapters), cluing audiences in to both the retrospective flavor and the playfulness. Inside the book, brief chapters of two or three pages of text in friendly print size, illustrated with photographs of people (family pictures abound) or relevant realia (saint cards, baseball cards, the Cub Scout pledge, and reproductions of period logos), each offer an anecdote about life in the obstreperous Scieszka household. Since this was a household of six children, all boys (Mrs. Scieszka was the only female in the house), life there resembled something between a constant romp and a ferocious military zone. Some autobiographies of children’s authors and illustrators devote attention to the subject’s burgeoning talent. Knucklehead, however, isn’t the portrait of the artist as a young man but the portrait of a jokester as a young man—the only writing he does is to amp up his list of swear words in response to a nun’s disciplinary instruction, and his most important realization comes when he repeats a joke to the open classroom and discovers the power of laughter. This is a power with which Scieszka fans are already well aware, and they’ll find much to guffaw about in these compact snapshots of life among the Scieszka Six. Highlights in the episodic account include bathroom stream-crossing “sword fights” (the inevitable result of sending boys to the toilet together), ugly suits that get handed down from brother to brother (photographic evidence provided), and boyish love for sweet nuns at his Catholic school (“Every boy in fourth grade would have married her in a second . . . if she hadn’t already been married to You-Know-Who”) and fear of stern ones (“What’s so funny, Mr. Scieszka?”). It won’t surprise Scieszka fans that this is ultimately a paean to the kind of boisterous boyhood that some adults fear is in abatement, the sort recently advocated in Conn Iggulden’s Dangerous Book for Boys and similar titles. And since the focus is Scieszka’s own childhood, there’s a touch of nostalgia to the portrait, which might effectively bring in parents, especially dads, and encourage them to read aloud, co-read, and share tales of their own but-don’t-do-what-I-did hijinx. Yet there’s plenty here for contemporary kid enjoyment, and the brotherhood is ultimately pretty nonthreatening, like a pack of mischievous puppies romping their way through youth, complete with puddles and damage to property but still irresistibly cute. An autobiography for those who prefer to read riddle books and Captain Underpants (it’s worth noting that flap copy declares Scieszka’s main mission to be “Reach the Reluctant Reader”), this will be a lifesaver for reports; Scieszka’s even given it an index, albeit a loony and somewhat biased one (the author himself is indexed under half a dozen superlative phrases), and cannily sized it just past that crucial 100-page mark. Pretty clever for a knucklehead Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2008, Viking, 106p. illus. with photographs., $16.99 and $12.99. Grades 3-6.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2009)
Scieszka offers entertaining and allegedly true tales from his Michigan childhood, growing up in a family of six boys and two blessedly good-natured parents. Short, conversational paragraphs showcase his expertly timed delivery. The anecdotes are loosely chronological but discrete, and the book's browsability is enhanced by a profusion of family photos. There's also a helpful index: "smartest, 11; see also Jon." Category: Nonfiction-Biographies. 2008, Viking, 112pp, 16.99, 12.99. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.

Lauri J. Vaughan (VOYA, December 2008 (Vol. 31, No. 5))
Thankfully, Scieszka never grew up. Evidence is this autobiography that reads more like a conversation with the class clown in the back row of Algebra I than a memoir. The author of The Time Warp Trio series as well as neo-classic picture books The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs tells of his growing up as the second of six sons of a school principal and a nurse in Flint, Michigan. Predictable hilarity of a rambunctious boy-dominated world ensues. Tales run from the relatively innocent con of a younger brother to cover backyard-dog-poop detail to more startling small explosions and attempts at hiding various destructions. The front and back cover designs imitate comic books popular during Scieszka's 1960s childhood, and although the content is not of the graphic variety, it is appealing. The slim book is divided into thirty-eight very brief chapters littered with images of hokey birthday cards, Cub Scout paraphernalia, and baseball cards. Goofy grade school photos of the boys-wearing the same striped, hand-me-down jacket-are here, too, as are the even goofier family Halloween and holiday photos. It is all fair game, and Scieszka invites readers to revel in his fun. This memoir is indispensable for students required to write author reports. Adults of Scieszka's generation will enjoy the backward glance to the era, and his fans-as well as readers who love a funny boy story-will find themselves guiltily giggling over nearly every page. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P M (Readable without serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8). 2008, Viking, 112p.; Illus. Photos., $16.99. Ages 11 to 14.