How to eat fried worms Book

Although Thomas Rockwell's How to Eat Fried Worms was very much a personal favourite when it was read to me (to our whole class) in grade five, as an adult rereading this novel, I unfortunately feel that How to Eat Fried Worms has lost much if not most of its charm, in other words, that it has not aged all that well. For the antics of Billy Forrester and his friends (and of course, his adversaries, his nemeses), they now leave me, at best, only very mildly amused, and more often than not actually rather majorly annoyed. I mean, eating fifteen large earthworms (nightcrawlers) for a silly wager, while this might have appealed to me as an eleven year old, as an adult, it makes me rather shudder (and I actually also feel sorry and some compassion for the poor worms, and especially the last nightcrawler that is literally consumed alive, not to mention that Billy's and Alan's bet is for something like fifty dollars, a pretty large amount of money that could in my opinion encourage imitation, even gambling). However, and that all being said, I guess I can to a point both still see and appreciate the lasting appeal of How to Eat Fried Worms (and in particular for girls and especially boys between the ages of eight to around twelve); after all, my eleven year old self absolutely loved this. And perhaps one could consider the fact that Billy not only manages to eat all of the required fifteen earthworms, but actually becomes "hooked" on them, that he begins to enjoy eating them as a food source, as somewhat of a mildly didactic authorial message to not simply disdain different, strange or exotic seeming foods until one has tasted them, until one has at least tried them (but this potential is not really enough for me anymore, as the erstwhile magic and delight of How to Eat Fried Worms that I experienced in grade five has by now quite lastingly dissipated).