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James Patterson talks in facts and figures.

Patterson — an author so prolific he has 120 titles on his bibliography, most famously the Alex Cross detective series and the Women's Murder Club mystery books — will, in a 15-minute interview, point out he's the third-best-selling children's author in the United States (behind "Harry Potter" creator J.K. Rowling and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" author Jeff Kinney).

He talks about the money — around $20 million — that he's given in scholarships to teachers, to encourage kids to read more.

He also will boast that the latest movie based on one of his books, "Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life" (opening nationwide Friday), got a 97 percent favorable rating with test audiences — when 60 percent to 70 percent would be considered a good score.

"Kids and parents love it, especially kids," Patterson said this week, on the phone from New York.

The "Middle School" movie, like the book, centers on seventh-grader Rafe Khatchadorian (Griffin Gluck), who's trying to fit in at a new school where an order-obsessed principal (Andy Daly) enforces his rulebook with an iron fist. Rafe, aided by his friend Leo (Thomas Barbusca), formulates a series of pranks to undo each of the school's rules in the most creative ways possible.

Patterson said he sought to fill the young-adult end of the book store because of his son, Jack.

"He's a bright guy, but he wasn't a big reader," Patterson said. So during the summer, Patterson said, he got Jack any books he could find to interest him. Among the favorites were Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" and Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series.

"I started with the title," Patterson said of the first "Middle School" book. (There are now seven, with the eighth arriving in stores this month.) "With kids that age, things are either the best or the worst.

"I wanted to write something funny — something where I could be a little more comedic," he said, though the story is also sad in places. "My promise with this movie: You're gonna laugh and you're gonna cry."

You're also going to get Patterson's opinion about standardized testing and the homogenization of education. "This testing that's taking over the school system," he said, leads to "kids who get lost in the system" — kids like Rafe, who likes to draw but finds his school, like many, has no art classes.

And, because he's different, Rafe gets bullied. "They'll bully a kid where they don't know where [he's] coming from," Patterson said, adding that when the movie premiered in New York last weekend, the head of New York's board of education approached him to get the movie shown to every middle-school principal in the city — so they can understand the bullying issue from the point of view of children.

"Middle School" isn't the first movie made from a Patterson book — Morgan Freeman played Alex Cross twice, Tyler Perry played Cross once and Patterson's "Zoo" launched a TV series that will enter its third season next summer — but he said it's "the best movie anybody's made from one of my books."

Patterson was more hands-on with this movie. He took the title of producer and even has a cameo. ("It's one of the weaker scenes," he said with some modesty.)

As a producer, Patterson brags about how good the child actors were and how director Steve Carr brought the shoot in on time and under budget. "They're like a little family," he said. "Everybody left with hugs and kisses."

With "Middle School" hitting theaters, Patterson has more projects in the works. He has another Alex Cross book coming in the fall, and another kids' book, "Word of Mouse." Also in the pipeline is "Give Please a Chance," a picture book about the importance of civility, on which he collaborated with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. (In the interest of civility, I'll refrain from making a snarky comment about that one.)

No doubt all of them will be successful. And, when they are, Patterson will be able to tell you how many copies they sold.

Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.