Review: I Want To Go Home

Title: I Want To Go Home!
Author: Gordon Korman
Publisher: Scholastic Books
Publication Date: 1981
Genre: Junior Fiction, Humour

Upon recommendation from the school guidance counselor, Rudy Miller is sent to Camp Algonkian Island for boys. Rudy hates camp and everything it entails. He quickly teams up with Mike Webster, who feels the same way about summer camp and all the activities. Rudy is difficult and stoic, but he’s also a mastermind for causing trouble. Together, Mike and Rudy scheme again and again to escape. In a camp full of clone counselors, whiny cabin mates and a plethora of opportunities to cause trouble, Rudy and Mike find themselves actually having fun as they attempt to escape over and over again.

My fifth grade teacher was big on Gordon Korman, and he read this book to our class. I thought it was completely hilarious, but that was over a decade ago. Rereading I Want To Go Home, I still thought it was hilarious. I first started to really laugh when Rudy wrote his letter home to camp. I loved Rudy’s wry humour and the misadventures and trouble he and Mike get into. Like Mike and Rudy, I’ve gone to a summer camp in Ontario that can only be reached by boat, and I thought Gordon Korman created a great caricature of camp. The plot is fairly simple and takes place over half a month of camp, during which Rudy and Mike execute escape plan after escape plan, starting a pillow fight and putting a sock in their counselor’s soup. While many of the things they do are funny, it’s Rudy’s wit and sarcasm that takes the cake. I Want To Go Home is a fun and entertaining book that’s a great start to summer.

4.5/5

“Dear Mom and Dad, wrote Rudy. This place is terrible. Each day I am subjected to countless atrocities.”