Katie Couric’s book,
The Brand New Kid, is a story about
tolerance on a grade school level. Let’s face it, kids can
be cruel. When a new boy named Lazlo S. Gasky arrives at Brookhaven School, Carrie O’Toole and Ellie McSnelly (yes, believe it or not, that’s really her name) and fellow classmates tease him because he’s “too different and strange to fit in.” The obvious message here is to don’t judge a book by its cover. Everybody needs to be given a chance – kids included. The
behavior of the school children may be a bit mean-spirited, but Katie Couric’s approach to a difficult subject is not too preachy. Unfortunately her attempt at rhyme falls flat in places, making the book a little awkward to read aloud.
About the Celebrity Author Katherine Anne “Katie” Couric is an American TV journalist and former co-anchor for NBC’s the Today Show. Couric later switched to the CBS Evening News, making her the first solo female anchor of a major weekday evening news program. When her husband, Jay Monahan, died in 1998 of colon cancer, she became a prominent spokeswoman for colon cancer awareness. Couric write a sequel to
The Brand New Kid entitled
The Blue Ribbon Day.