My younger son (1st grade) really enjoys the My Weird School series by Dan Gutman. He is just starting to learn to read so the MWS series are books that I read to him at bedtime. We own 4-5 of the books and have checked out several more from our local library.
Pros: There are some very silly and funny parts, which encourage children to read more. My son loved Dr. Brad Has Gone Mad because Dr. Brad speaks with an accent. ("I vant you to look at zeez pictures and tell me vut you see.") Or when the teacher says to take out your reading log, AJ says, "I don't have a reading log. Who wants to read a log?" There are some educational parts (for example, the book about Presidents' Day, Mr. Macky is Wacky, "I'm James Madison. I am the 4th president--and the shortest. I'm about five feet four inches tall.").
Cons: The language in the book is not appropriate. Every book starts with "My name is A.J. and I hate school." My sons (1st and 4th) like school and I want them to continue to like school for as long as possible. I know they will at some point not like school anymore. I'd rather that they didn't get the idea too soon that they're "supposed to" hate school. So I when I read the book, I either just read, "My name is A.J." or if I read the I hate school part, then I'll try to counter that with, "That's too bad! School can be so fun!"
Every book also has several instances of name-calling, mostly "dumbhead." I usually don't read the name calling parts. If I accidently do read it or it's part of the plot, then I stop and remind my son that we don't call people names. Several times the main character will say, "Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her." AJ and another character Andrea are always bickering. "Maybe you'll finally get kicked out of school," said Andrea. "Your face should get kicked out of school," I told her. Again, as much as I can, I cut these parts out and don't read them.
With bullying in schools and rude behavior from so many people (kids and adults), do we really need children's books that encourage this kind of behavior? If the author could change the mean and rude language to more of the fun and silly parts, I would give this series 5 stars--and probably buy every single MWS book. But instead I give them a cautious 3 stars and wonder if I should stop getting any more of these books. I would never buy one of these books as a gift for another child.