Book Reviews :: How to Make Friends and Monsters & How to Survive Middle School and Monster Bots by Howard Boward, with a little help from Ron Bates

I must admit, I really enjoyed the Howard Boward series books. When I received these, I first let my son (age 9) read them, and I would hear him giggling constantly while he was reading. When I read them, I found myself giggling, too!

The series starts with the book, How to Make Friends and Monsters. In this book, we meet Howard Boward, self-proclaimed middle school nerd. We follow Howard through his adventure in "making" (literally) a friend and his interactions with his peers. How to Make Friends and Monsters is fun to read and I felt that it kept a good perspective in light of the many middle school shenanigans.

I was honestly not expecting to like How to Make Friends and Monsters as much as I did, but it was very funny and enjoyable to read. My kids loved it, too. My kids love to read (a lot), so the 347 pages was a good length, but I can see that it might be a bit long for some kids.

In How to Survive Middle School and Monster Bots, we meet back up with Howard Boward as he prepares to enter a robot-making contest. Just as in How to Make Friends and Monsters, How to Survive Middle School and Monster Bots deals with friendship (& nerdiness) and is very enjoyable to read. The author, Ron Bates, has a great writing style and I couldn't help but giggle as I was reading along. 

After reading How to Make Friends and Monsters, I was excited to start reading How to Survive Middle School and Monster Bots and I think the main downside to this book was that it was more then 100 pages shorter than the first. I enjoyed both books in the Howard Boward series and hope to read more from Ron Bates (and Howard Boward) in the future. 

FTC Declaration: The publisher has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book or advanced reading copy. This does not change the fact that I will give my honest opinion in my reviews.