Too Much Glue

This is probably not a good book for anyone who struggles with any form of second-hand embarrassment, regardless of age. It's also the kind of book that I think simultaneously has a lesson I enjoy (encouraging children to engage in creativity) but also a lesson that I find frustrating (using all of something that others might want to use in their own creativity and also causing a range of inconveniences for others). The latter lesson is, admittedly, not the focus, but it is something that I know reading it with kids would often prompt them to respond to it over the encouragement for being creative.

I think it's also worth recognising that these kinds of stories usually feature boys taking the protagonist role and behaving in what appears to be reckless manners (and being praised for it), while girls and women typically are shown to be looking on in degrees of disgust to horror or are downright shown as being incapable of doing much (with the teacher in the story hyperventilating). We should also be asking a question of how this story would be handled or treated should the protagonist be anyone other than a boy, even if we believe the story itself to be innocuous.