Marnelle Tokio.  Room 207
Tundra Books  $12.99  ISBN 0-88776-695-1  165 pg.
Reviewed by Patrick, Age 11

Every muscle in every body had been jumping out of its skin. Now everyone just wanted to stand still and eyeball the “most grievous accident.”  

The wreck of Room 207.

There were no walls. Not between the room and the hall. Not between the room and the outside. If you wanted to, you could run from your locker, across the hall, across the classroom floor, and jump into the oak tree. If you missed, you would fall two floors and land in the kindergarten sandbox.

Oh no! Over the summer Room 207 went through a huge accident. The classroom that once held real tar pits, fake robot dinosaurs, and a 33-flavour slurpy machine now is smashed into bits and pieces. They now have to move into the old schoolhouse located in the field of Anna Swans Height Elementary School. To make matters worse, the annual Best Classroom Contest is coming up. How will Miss Chimney’s Grade 5 class win the grand prize of ice cream tasting for a week if the classroom is a dud?

Marnelle Tokio is the up and coming author who wrote Room 207. The first book she wrote was the award winning More Than You Can Chew. She is a Canadian author, but has spent years in other countries. In this humorous fiction novel she has really given us something to laugh about. I can’t wait to see more Marnelle Tokio books on the shelves soon!

Ha! Ha! Ha! I repeated this word over and over while I read this book. If you can’t find something to laugh about in this book, you should see a doctor. This book made me holler! First of all, there was the funny problem and conclusion. Secondly, there was a crazy line-up of characters, which included a classroom bully with a crush on the teacher, a girl who doesn’t get enough sleep and the world’s second fastest pig. 

Although, there were a couple of things I was unhappy about. To me, the storyline got quite confusing at times and sometimes I couldn’t get the story straight. The illustrations, well … apparently Patrick didn’t like them. There is one crucial piece of criteria for illustrations in my opinion, go big or go home! These illustrations looked like they were drawn by a five-year-old; they had no colour (understandably) and very little detail.

However, I will recommend this book to anyone between 8 and12, and especially to the Grade 5 kids out there. I give Room 207 four stars because you made me laugh.