Going First Class? The Class Trip from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler

We're going on a first class trip tomorrow. In my history book we learned a lot about some famous class trips. Louis and Clark went across America. They couldn't find one motel open! I wonder where we'll go and who we'll see.

The kids phone each other and try to predict. They all have different ideas.

Freddie always looks on the bright side. He holds out for Pizza Mutt. He's an optometrist. Eric always looks on the dark side. He's a messymist.

And then there's the story about the class that had a picnic lunch on the slopes of a volcano. All anyone ever found of them was twelve toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

 The kid is worried. What horrors will Mean Mrs. Green have in store for them? It's a night of nightmarish dreams until the alarm goes off at 5:30 A.M. He so tired he brushes his teeth with shoe polish and pours himself a bowl of dishwashing powder. He staggers out to wait for the school bus. It's pitch black outside, but finally he sees the headlights. When he climbs aboard, all the kids are staring straight ahead as if they are scared stiff.

But their bus driver Mr. Fenderbender delivers them all to school after only four collisions, and Mean Mrs. Green climbs on the CLASS TRIP bus, which takes them to a remote little airport where they board the historic First Passenger Plane Ever, built by the WRONG BROTHERS. Mrs. Green hands out parachutes. Mr. Fenderbender and Mrs Green try to figure out how to start the plane. Eric, the class clown announces the in-flight entertainment.

"We'll be seeing a bunch of selected shorts." He pulls out his underwear. Gross!

It's a day at Dizzyland, all right. They parachute into a jungle full of wild beasts, all hungry, it seems, for tenderloin of kid! There're alligator-filled rivers,  quicksand, and a desert and nothing to drink and the kid's head starts to swim but there's no swimming pool... and... and... then...

I start seeing things. It's a school bus that says CLASS TRIP. Mrs. Green opens the door and the kids inside are all wide awake and excited... We're going to the Zoo!

All that first field trip was just a dream, the product of poor sleep, in Mike Thaler's kickoff title in his series, The Class Trip from the Black Lagoon (Black Lagoon Adventures, No. 1) (Scholastic Press). The sequel to his first book, The Teacher from the Black Lagoon, this one is an extravaganza of school-themed silliness which begins a long series of killer-diller chapter books for middle readers, illustrated in the wild comic style of Jared Lee, famous for his equally over-the-top illustrations for Lucille Colandro's hilarious holiday and seasonal tales beginning with There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly!

 If field trips with Ms. Frizzle on the Magic School Bus are too tame, it's time for Mr. Fenderbender, Mean Mrs. Green, and the Black Lagoon kids to take over the scene.