Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sun May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Starred Review With his deep-seated love of not reading, this title's young narrator, Charlie Joe, speaks straight to other book-averse middle-schoolers. But avid readers will equally enjoy Charlie Joe's story, with its wild parodies and surprises that continue to the very end. The elaborate plot revolves around Charlie Joe's complicated tactics to avoid reading. He sets up bookworm Jake with cheerleader Hannah, for example, so that grateful Jake will read Charlie Joe's books for a class project about school cliques, but things don't go as planned; as Charlie Joe warns, Always be wary of plot twists. Charlie Joe's wry first-person narrative, interspersed with anti-reading tips and occasional small cartoons, mocks nearly everyone, also himself, and the hilarious wordplay adds to the fun: Charlie Joe is in love with Hannah, but if she is flawless, her twin brother is flawful. Not all books are bad, though: Charlie Joe does like checkbooks (a source of gifts from grandparents), comic books, and Facebook. A perfect read-aloud, this debut is filled with passages that beg to be shared: It is impossible to concentrate because I don't have my cell phone to text my friends to break up my concentration. With its subversive humor and contemporary details drawn straight from kids' worlds, this clever title should attract a wide following.

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

Middle schooler Charlie Joe Jackson hates reading so much that he enlists friends, siblings, and others in schemes to avoid it. His punishment is writing a book (the one we're reading), and he discovers he likes writing. The narrator's faux I'm-one-of-you tone won't fool reluctant readers. However, his smart-alecky voice--and the lengths he goes in his attempt to escape reading--may entertain them.

Kirkus Reviews

Charlie Joe will do just about anything to avoid reading in this humorous cautionary tale for book-hating middle-grade students. Debut author Greenwald takes on the persona of Charlie Joe Jackson, a middle-school boy who hates reading. His avoidance techniques get him into serious trouble with his parents, his teachers and his friends. After a year of avoiding reading—paying off a friend in ice-cream sandwiches to read books for him and manipulating his friends so he won't have to read for the all-important position-paper project—Charlie Joe is forced to spend his summer vacation writing a book about his poor choices. Charlie Joe's insider knowledge of the inner machinations of middle-school cliques will make younger readers smile in anticipation, and his direct address to readers makes make him feel like an older buddy showing the way. Sprinkled into the narrative are "Charlie Joe's Tips" to avoiding reading books, written on faux notebook paper, that serve as a little diversion from the plot. As amusing as this is, Charlie Joe's voice is not consistent and occasionally jars with the intelligent, smart-guy sarcasm that characterizes most of Charlie Joe's prose. That aside, slackers everywhere have a new, likable hero in Charlie Joe Jackson. (Fiction. 10-12)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Greenwald pulls off a clever bit of reverse psychology in his debut, first in a series starring a cheeky middle grader who goes to great lengths to avoid reading-and whose humor and rapid-fire delivery should draw in like-minded kids. From the start, Charlie Joe schmoozes playfully with readers, promising short chapters and shorter words ("One syllable. Or less"). Kids who, upon entering the school library, may have been asked (as Charlie Joe is), "did you take a wrong turn somewhere?" will find an enthusiastic advocate in the boy. Throughout, he provides "tips" that dedicated nonreaders will enjoy ("If you have to read a book, make sure it has short chapters"). The novel chronicles Charlie Joe's machinations to avoid reading, which involve getting his classmates to do so for him; using this tactic for a research paper about school cliques yields revelations about clique mentality, but lands Charlie Joe in more trouble. Doth Charlie Joe protest too much? Maybe, but

School Library Journal (Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Gr 5-7 Charlie Joe Jackson is a likable middle schooler and an unabashed nonreader. In fact, he's so against the practice that he constantly flirts with danger to ensure that he never has to crack a book. He makes deals with friends to fill him in on assigned reading. When he is caught, it becomes much more difficult to pull off his year-end, research-heavy "Position Paper." He nails it, but there is no happy ending, and he writes a bookthis bookas punishment. Greenwald believably inhabits the mind of a tween, with the cliques and short-lived first romances that come with it. Charlie Joe narrates his story while providing humorous tips between chapters about reading and avoiding it. This is a fun, fast-moving look at middle-school life through the eyes of a kid who would rather clean his room than pick up a book. Reluctant readers will be pleased.— Travis Jonker, Dorr Elementary School, MI