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Gutman, Dan.
THE HOMEWORK MACHINE
New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2006
IL 3-6, RL 4.8
ISBN 0689876785
Click on the book to read Amazon reviews
 Meet four 5th-grade students, Sam Dawkins, nicknamed Snikwad, Kelsey Donnelly, Judy Douglas, and Brenton Damagatchi. Four different personalities, but all in trouble for one thing: cheating on their homework with the homework machine they named Belch.

Brenton didn't intend for Belch to become a big deal; he invented it for himself because he wanted to save time for the things he really wanted to study like psychology, physics, and medicine. But when the parents and first-year teacher, Miss Rasmussen, start suspecting the kids of some wrong-doing, someone tips the police off to the homework machine and who's using it. Snikwad, Kelsey, Judy, and Brenton become instantly worried and guilty that their going to get caught. Did one of them break their bond of secrecy about Belch? Was there great harm in getting their homework done by a machine's brain instead of their own?

Dare to read this preposterous tale of friendship among the most unlikely group of friends. What would you have done if given the choice of doing your homework yourself or not? (Lisa Murno, murnol@guilford.k12.ct.us, librarian)
SUBJECTS:     Homework -- Fiction.
                        Cheating -- Fiction.
                        Schools -- Fiction.
                        Interpersonal relations -- Fiction.
                        Arizona -- Fiction.

 
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