Love this book! Audrey Wood captures a boy's attempt at trying to get used to his parents weird ways with society. The character's parents leaves him cute notes in his lunches, blows kisses to him while he gets on the bus, they wear their hair crazy and are always the center of attention. At the end of the day, the character wouldn't trade his parents for the world because they are his parents after all. Parental love is the plot of this story, respecting and learning the true meaning of parental love for a child despite an occasional embarrassment in public. ( )

Are your parents weird? Have your parents done any of the following:
*Screamed "Bye-bye, Honeycakes" as you climb onto the school bus?
*Gave you strange things inside you lunchbox such as notes or animal-shaped food?
*Comb their hair and dress weird?
*Play weird games like Parcheesi?

This young boy has weird parents and they have done EVERYTHING above plus more. He kept telling his parents to stop doing weird things, but they never stopped. The young boy never looked forward to family night because of his weird parents. If they went out, they put on weird hats and combed their hair weird. They would walk to the picture show (the movies) weirdly and laugh when no one else laughed. If they stayed in, they would play weird games like Parcheesi. If the boy won both rounds, they would not get mad... which was weird.

When the young boy went to bed, he wished that his parents were normal AND then he wished that everyone else had weird parents. Both scenarios were impossible. So he embraced that weird or not, they were his parents no matter what! ( )

When a boy is embarrassed he has weird parents, he wishes that they would just be normal like everyone else's parents. The boys parents always do weird things in front of all of his classmates, they are loud in the movies and no matter what they do, they embarrass the boy. But the boy enjoys the activities he does with his parents, and he knows that his parents love him. The message behind this story that Wood wants the readers to get from it, is that no matter how strange a family is, they are your family and they will always love you and be there for you. So in the end, it does not matter if they are weird as long as you love each other. It teaches the importance of family. ( )

Over-the-top, in your face.  The theme has been explored with more grace and wit elsewhere. ( )

weirded me out as a kid, but love it now! ( )