Freaky Monday by Mary Rodgers and Heather Hach

Author: Mary Rodgers and Heather Hach

Release Date: May 5, 2009

Category: Contemporary

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Thirteen-year-old Hadley Fox (I so love her name!) is not your average eighth grader. She has a 4.3 GPA (I know, makes me feel terrible for my grades in school!), studies like crazy, and constantly has her nose in a book. Hadley, even at 13, strives for Stanford as her college destination, but the one thing she also strives to do is become her gorgeous, loved-by-everyone older sister, Tatum.

Matters turn horrifying for Hadley when she forgets to write down an assignment in her “Super Student Planner Plus” and her whole world seems to collapse around her. Said assignment is an oral report for none other than Tatum’s favorite teacher, Ms. Pitt; the hippie, eccentric, over-involved teacher who prefers to be called Carol that Hadley can’t stand.

As Ms. Pitt makes Hadley try to wing her report and allows her a change in topic, something happens. In the Freaky Friday, Lindsay Lohan/Jamie Lee Curtis fashion, they finish a sentence together, the room shakes (which only they feel), and then they are transformed.

This couldn’t happen on any worse of a day for either of the two protagonists since today is the first time in months Hadley’s crush has spoken to her, and there is the first I-Hate-Mondays DANCE! As for Ms. Pitt (yes, I too can’t help but giggle), it is her meeting with the school board to become the head of the English department.

Things seem to run amok between both character’s lives from family, to love, to even careers, and not quite as smoothly as either would hope. You should also note that there are more correlations between this book and the Freaky Friday movie than there were between the Freaky Friday book and movie versions, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this case.

I was amused from start to finish because of Hadley from her description of Tatum, which includes this little nugget, “In movies, brunette is code for “friend” and blonde translates to “girlfriend.” But this movie logic isn’t my reality.” And that’s just the beginning. We see movies and bands that most will probably notice, and bands that were totally made up (Sketched-Out Boy for example), but either way this is a quick, adorable, and quite amusing read. And it also reminds you that teachers have feelings, lives, and, most of the time, they do actually care.

Anyone that is still in school, or even those out of school, should totally read this story. Surprisingly, Hadley, Ms. Pitt, Tatum, and even the more minor characters can teach you something that you probably wouldn’t have thought about before, and I mean that in a good way.