The bookshelves of my boys are packed chock full of Big Nate books and whenever the school book fair rolls around, we can always find a Nate book on their lists. So while my feet may have encountered some of the their Big Nate books as I tripped over them while entering their room, Great Minds Think Alike was my first time sitting down to read one of the Lincoln Peirce books. Peirce had me entertained from the first page until the end of the book, you can now consider me a fan.
Big Nate – Great Minds Think Alike is the comic version of a Big Nate book (there are chapter books as well) and the artwork as well as the stories work well in this format. The shorter different story arcs in the book keep things moving at a nice pace while giving a bit of meat to the comics themselves. These are not three panel stories you get to watch things develop a bit. Nate tackles things like life coaching, trying to get into the book of records, fiddling with font sizes on a report for school, trying to get his friend Francis to beat Gina at schoolwork, heat waves, mowing lawns and much more. Nate also has a large cast of characters during his adventures, all of them adding to the story in different ways and also allowing your child to relate to them in different ways.
Nate brings you the G rated real life aspects of sixth grade in a very funny way and as a parent that makes me feel very comfortable knowing the kids enjoy the books and that I do not have to be worried about anything they are reading. Lincoln Peirce is doing it the right way as you can tell by the enthusiasm the kids show for a new book when it shows up, at one point the book had three separate bookmarks in it because we all wanted to read it at the same time.
Be careful Big Nate might just teach your kids some new tricks!
Here is what our 10-year-old had to say about Big Nate – Great Minds Think Alike: “This is the second one of the comic versions of Nate that I have read. Liked it better than the first one. A bunch of funny Nate comics with lots of stories. I liked it when they all went to the beach. My favorite other character in the book besides Nate is School Picture Guy who is a clown at the beach. Cool that Mrs. Godfrey went away on sabbatical, that has happened in my school as well.”
Summary:
Nate Wright is a wisecracking 11-year-old who knows he’s destined for greatness. Nate is the star of Big Nate, the daily and Sunday comic strip that made its debut in 1991. Nate’s a sixth-grade chess prodigy, a self-described genius, and the all-time record holder for detentions in school history. He’s often in hot water with his teachers and classmates, but Nate’s winning personality and can-do attitude always make him a big hit with readers.