60 pages • 2 hours read
Chris Tebbetts, James Patterson, Illustr. Laura ParkMiddle School, The Worst Years of My Life
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “I’m Rafe Khatchadorian, Tragic Hero”
Rafe, the narrator and main character, begins by talking about riding in the back seat of a police car with his sister Georgia and his unspeaking friend Leo, short for Leonardo.
Rafe is just starting the sixth grade at Hills Village Middle School (HVMS). He describes himself as a difficult person to understand. He is very untrusting. Leo is his only friend, the only person whom he trusts. He introduces Mrs. Ida Stricker, the vice principal, who is in charge of everything, especially discipline. He introduces Mrs. Ruthless Donatello, whom he calls the Dragon Lady, his English teacher. He introduces his fourth-grade sister, Georgia, a super brat who looks like his mother, Jules, must have looked when she was that age. Rafe says he has quite a story to tell.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Middle School/Max Security Prison”
After saying he believes that HVMS was originally built during revolutionary times and used as a prison for the Pilgrims, he explains that, as a sixth-grader, he is one of the youngest students. Rafe goes to his first-period class and tries to sit at the back of the room. He encounters a boy named Miller, whom he calls Miller the Killer, who refuses to let him sit in any chair. Rafe stands until Mr. Rourke, the teacher, yells at him to take a seat.
Chapter 3 Summary: “At Least I’ve Got Leo”
Rafe describes his close friend—his only friend—Leo, who draws a lot of pictures and says very little. Rafe says, “Bottom line, Leonardo the Silent is his best friend at Hills Village or anywhere else. And before he gets his head too big to fit through the door, I should say there’s not a whole lot of competition for that title” (15).
Chapter 4 Summary: “Raw, Raw, Raw, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda...”
On this first day of school, all the students go to the gymnasium, where Mr. Dwight, the principal, welcomes everyone. Vice Principal Stricker gets up and asks anyone who wants to run for the student council to come forward. One who comes forward is Jeanne Galletta. She is so pretty that Rafe can’t stop looking at her. He fantasizes that she asks him if he would like to sit with her at lunch. He decides he will definitely vote for Jeanne.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Those Oh-So-Cruel Rules”
Mrs. Stricker holds up the Hills Village Middle School Code of Conduct, a 26-page book that details how students are to behave, which bores Rafe incredibly. Every time Stricker reads a rule, Leo draws a picture of a kid breaking that rule. Suddenly Rafe gets an idea: “This was the best idea anyone had ever had in the whole history of middle school. In the whole history of ideas! Not only was it going to help me get through the year, I thought, it might also just save my life here at Hills Village” (28).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Eureka”
Rafe decides that his goal is to break every single rule in the code of conduct book. Leo tells Rafe he will never be one of the popular or “important” people. However, he can set himself apart by breaking all the rules.
Rafe approaches a teacher for a restroom pass. He goes to a distant part of the building, pulls the fire alarm, and then races back to where all the students are.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Chaos”
Joining all the kids who have marched outside because of the fire alarm, Rafe and Leo converse. Leo congratulates him for breaking a rule. Taking a pen, Rafe marks through Section 11, Rule 3: “Students shall not tamper with smoke or fire alarms under any circumstances” (35). Rafe considers this only the first of many rules to be broken.
Chapter 8 Summary: “My Home Page”
Rafe rides home on the school bus, listening to everyone talk about the fire drill. He is leery of encountering his stepfather, Carl, whom he calls Bear. In almost all drawings of Carl, he is a bear. Bear and his obnoxious dog, Ditka, live with Jules, Rafe, and Georgia.
Bear asks if Rafe has signed up for football yet, which Rafe has not. Neither Rafe nor his sister, Georgia, think much of Bear. Their mother must work double shifts at the diner to keep the household solvent. Bear sits on the couch and watches television. Rafe says, “Bottom line? My mom was way too good for this guy, but unfortunately neither of them seemed to know it” (41).
Chapter 9 Summary: “Check This Out”
This chapter is simply two pages of drawings depicting the inside of Rafe’s room with video games, pinball machines, a full refrigerator, fish tanks, hamster tanks, televisions, DVDs, games, posters, a drum set, and a seat on the floor.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Check This Out, Part II”
This two-page spread is what Rafe says his room really looks like: a bare light bulb, cracked and peeling wallpaper, water leaking from the ceiling into a bucket, rats, and a raccoon living in his mattress. He writes that the previous picture might have been a little bit of an exaggeration.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Georgia on My Nerves”
Rafe’s little sister, Georgia, comes to see him. He says of her, “In case you’re wondering, Georgia is nine and a half years old, in fourth grade, and 100% into everyone’s business” (46).
Chapter 12 Summary: “So This Is What Motivation Feels Like”
Rafe officially names his project Operation R.A.F.E., an acronym from the words “Rules Aren’t For Everyone” (48). He establishes the project like a video game with many different prizes he will win and a great number of points assigned for different types of rule-breaking. Every rule in the code of conduct should have a point value for when broken. He notes there are 112 rules he must break.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Off and Running”
Jules makes breakfast. When she asks what Rafe thinks of middle school, he replies, “‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be’” (54). It pleases Jules that Rafe is getting off to a good start.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Rules Were Made for Breaking”
Rafe lists the relatively minor rules he broke on the various days of the first week. Leo tells Rafe he is just coasting; if he is going to play the game, he’s really got to be serious about breaking important rules. Leo tells Rafe he has three lives, as in a video game, and if he does not get 30,000 points that day, he will lose one of his lives.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Write and Wrong”
Mrs. Donatello makes students read parts of Romeo and Juliet. Rafe takes the part of Paris. He notices that the text is in rhyming stanzas. When the time comes for him to read his part, he has written a completely different series of lines: “Excuse me, sir, there’s dog poop on your shoe. […] Your wife is ugly, and your daughter too. I think this play is stupid, so guess what? I’m out of here and you can kiss my—” (60). Mrs. Donatello rips the page out of his hand.
Rafe says he knew he was in trouble, but even Jeanne was laughing at him, so he was losing and winning at the same time.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Thin Ice Is Better Than No Ice at All”
Donatello warns Rafe about his behavior, though she noticed he used Shakespeare’s rhyme scheme when he created his alternate verse. He had taken Leo’s challenge and got 35,000 points for the day. He also attracted the attention of Jeanne, who now knows Rafe exists. Rafe decides that Leo is a genius.
Chapter 17 Summary: “New Rule”
From his room after school, he hears Bear tell Georgia she cannot watch what she wants on TV. She goes to her room and slams the door:
‘Pick on someone your own size!’ I yelled down the hall.
‘Mind your own beeswax,’ Bear said back and turned up the volume on the TV. It wasn’t even worth trying to argue (67).
Waiting for Rafe in his room is Leo. They decide they need a new rule: No one should get hurt because of Operation R.A.F.E. They call it the “no hurt rule”: All the risks are the responsibilities of Rafe.
Chapters 1-17 Analysis
[Chapter titles are Rafe’s commentary on what happens in the chapters]
Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life is the initial collaboration of Patterson and Tebbetts. Artist Laura Park supplies the copious cartoons that both follow the narrative and, at points, take over the storyline. The authors and illustrator cooperated on the first five of the 15 books in the Middle School series.
The authors present Rafe as an intriguing main character. While it quickly becomes clear that Rafe has some unreconciled issues, the fact that he is the narrator makes it difficult to ferret out the underlying sources. Readers may wonder why a child, who apparently had not been a troublemaker in the past, suddenly arrives at the decision to literally break every rule in the book. The authors give scant hints as to the source of the underlying issues driving Rafe’s misbehavior. When Rafe willingly agrees to any disruptive idea Leo suggests, readers may conclude that Leo is the real problem and Rafe is simply his foil.
Throughout the narrative, Rafe expresses the notion that the school has imprisoned him and other students to subject them to pointless, arbitrary treatment at the hands of those who do not understand them. Indeed, the first question Rafe asks the reader is whether they can achieve mutual trust because Rafe has a complex story that he wants the reader to understand. The irony is that, like most tween young people, Rafe cannot articulate the pain and perceived injustice that drives him. Thus, rather than explain his motives, he draws the reader into the narrative to observe his life and live it with him.
His initial experiences at HVMS only confirm his suspicion that he is in prison: In first period, a bully prevents him from even selecting a desk; a seemingly pleasant teacher yells at him; he attends an all-school assembly where the privileged, special kids—with whom, Leo points out, he will never belong—sit in special seats; the culmination of his first day of incarceration comes when the vice principal reads a 26-page code of conduct. Spurred by Leo, Rafe decides to revolt, to break every rule in the book. If he cannot excel, at least he can rebel.
As Rafe does not expand on his motives and underlying feelings, the authors hint at Rafe’s underlying self through the chapter titles Rafe uses. These brief beginning phrases provide editorial comments that often say more about where Rafe is emotionally than anything he reveals to the adults he encounters. In the title of Chapter 1, Rafe introduces himself as a “tragic hero,” a preview of the mural he will draw in the fourth section, where he portrays himself as a valiant knight, battling a multitude of deadly foes as he tries to free the other kids from the code of conduct. His titles in Chapters 9 and 10—“Check This Out,” “Check This Out Part II”—display Rafe’s gift of irony and intertwining reality with fantasy in his art. He teases the reader with an initial image of what he has in his room, followed by a miserly drawing of what his room is really like. Chapter 15’s title, “Write and Wrong,” is a wordplay that predicts Rafe’s creative playing with words in an actual play. Using Shakespeare’s rhyme scheme, he writes another quatrain for a portion of Romeo and Juliet. In the chapter title, he editorially admits what he is doing is wrong, though it delights other students, and in the next chapter, Mrs. Donatello mentions some slight admiration for his creativity. Readers are unsure why Rafe acts as he does, but they can see he is a complex, creative, conflicted person.
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