BOOK NAME: Nothing But the Truth
AUTHOR: Avi

I had to read this book for school. Even though I had to read it for an assignment, I found myself thoroughly enjoying it. Sometimes reading for homework isn’t that bad, because you can end up reading some amazing books.

We already know that telling a lie is never good, but in this story we see that a lie can quickly escalate as more and more lies are added on to cover for the first one. Philip Malloy is in 9th grade and he dislikes his English teacher, Miss Narwin. Because of this, he purposely tries to do things to get on her nerves. As part of the daily morning activates at his high school, the national anthem is played. One day, Philip started humming along while it was being played. Despite warnings, he did this two more times during that same week, and ultimately was kicked out of the classroom and suspended from school.

Philip claims that this was an act of patriotism, but he’s really not a very big patriot in the first place. But many people jump on his bandwagon which leads to a series of events that result in some unfortunate consequences for almost everyone involved. It would seem that no one wins this battle.

Nothing But the Truth is a very intriguing book in that you’ll find yourself asking what is a lie and what is the truth? Sometimes it falls somewhere in between. I like the documentary style of this book’s writing because I found it easy to follow. It was also a great way to lay out the different viewpoints of the characters.

I would recommend this book for middle schoolers as I think they would find the subject matter the most interesting. This story will really make you stop and think and realize that there is always more than one side to a story, and that there can be some dire consequences to telling a lie.