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A young boy (in second grade, presumably) wakes up one morning convinced that he is a werewolf. Although he exhibits werewolf-like behavior, no one else seems to notice any change in him. The illustrations show him as a werewolf, but is this because that is how he sees himself or is it objective reality? I realize this is meant to be a silly story about a boy with a good imagination, but it can be used to consider our sense of who we are, especially when it is very different from normal. For example, consider Rabbi Nachman's "The Turkey Prince," I.B. Singer's "When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw" as well as stories in which someone appears after many years claiming to be someone who disappeared, such as Martin Guerre's impostor, Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar, E.L. Konisgburg's Father's Arcane Daughter, Peter Dickinson's The Last Houseparty, and I.J. Singer's Yoshe Kalb. ( )

When second-grader Lawrence Talbot wakes up one day and discovers that he has been transformed into a werewolf, he expects to make quite a stir. Imagine his surprise, when no one - not his parents, not his teacher, not even his best friend James - even notices!

I seem to have become obsessed recently with the work of Daniel Pinkwater, whose dead-pan sense of humor always seems to tickle my funny bone. But despite my appreciation for Pinkwater's work, I couldn't help feeling that I didn't really "get" I Was a Second-Grade Werewolf. I couldn't decide whether Lawrence's transformation was genuine, and the people around him were simply too self-absorbed to notice (a distinct possibility in Pinkwater), or if he was imagining, and becoming frustrated at the inability of others to join in his game...

I'm not sure the distinction will matter to actual second-grade readers, who will no doubt enjoy this short tale, but I myself wasn't as entertained by this offering, as I'd hoped to be. ( )

This seems like the sort of book that only Daniel Pinkwater would write. It's odd, reminded me a twisted sense of the Allan Say book about the boy who turned into an old man overnight and was etirely enjoyable. ( )

A young boy (by the name of Lawrence Talbot), wakes up one morning and discovers he is a werewolf, and to his dismay no one, not even his teacher, notices. ( )