Wildlife Management! Rescuing Mrs. Birdley by Aaron Reynolds

MIRANDA MONTGOMERY WAS AN ANIMAL EXPERT.

SHE WATCHED THE NATURE JOE SHOW EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Nature Joe's specialty is restoring lost wild animals out to their proper habitats. From re-placing lost lions to helping homeless lemurs, catching coatis to transporting tortoises, Nature Joe's a good guy.

SO WHEN MIRANDA SAW HER TEACHER AT THE GROCERY STORE, SHE KNEW JUST WHAT TO DO.

Clearly Mrs. Birdley has strayed outside the classroom where she belongs.

SHE HASN'T GOTTEN AGGRESSIVE, BUT MIRANDA WAS SURE SHE WOULD BE MUCH HAPPIER IN HER NATURAL HABITAT.

Well schooled by Nature Joe, Miranda knows all the tricks of the trade. She tries digging a deadfall (lined with soft cushions, of course, to be humane) to trap Mrs. Birdley. But the skittish Mrs. Birdley eludes capture. However, Miranda has observed Mrs. Birdley's habits and diet carefully, and after her drop net is all set, Miranda has the perfect lure--BLUEBERRY YOGURT!

IT WAS ALL MRS. BIRDLEY ATE BACK IN HER NATURAL HABITAT. MRS. BIRDLEY COULDN'T RESIST THE SCENT OF OF FRUITY, LOW-CALORIE GOODNESS!

But when the grocery clerk intervenes with a cheese ball Mrs. Birdley has forgotten at the counter, Mrs. Birdley is distracted and Miranda's net misses the mark. Not to be defeated, Miranda sneaks behind a display of large plastic trash bins until Mrs. Birdley is fully absorbed by some fresh alfalfa sprouts. Down comes the bin over her head, and her teacher is trapped inside. Miranda rolls the bin through town toward the elementary school, with Mrs. Birdley squeaking disquietly inside, and locks her safely back in her classroom. Mrs. Birdley didn't exactly look happy. But...

BEING LOCKED INSIDE HER CLASSROOM ALL WEEKEND WOULD SETTLE HER RIGHT DOWN.

Miranda Montgomery strolls home, feeling proud of her efforts, when she sees something else that requires her expertise. Her principal Mr. Crankerstout is roaming around loose in the lawn mower section of the home improvement store....! As Kirkus Reviews says, "A fun story for all the kids who think their teachers live at school, because... where else would they live?"

Teach: Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea

ALEXIA

I knew Teach couldn't move, but like, I hadn't expected him to be hooked up to so many tubes. I found the courage to tiptoe to his bed.
"Hi, Teach." I said. "it's Lexie." Already I fought back tears. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been mean to you. I wanted to hate you for saying those things to me, but you were right. Like, I'm doing better now, Teach. I'm not being mean. You'd be proud of me.

Teach, there's something I need to tell you. I think I saw Peter leaving here. Like, he's the one who threw the snowball. I know he didn't want this to happen. He loves you. All of us do. Peter hasn't, like, said anything in school. Not a word. But no one is trying to talk to him either. He did throw the snowball. So it's still his fault."

I had my face on his blanket when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up, and Jessica was there, and so were Danielle and Anna. I hugged them. I told them I was sorry. And then it was over. All of a sudden I had three friends. Like, Teach has helped me, even in his coma.

Mr. Terupt's fifth grade has some students with some real problems. Jessica's mom is newly divorced and now Jess is far from her California classmates, in a new school, and can't seem to find a friend. Danielle is overweight and Lexie controls her by alternatively including her in her circle and ignoring her. Lexie's mom, too, has had a bitter divorce, telling her "Don't let people push you around like your father did to us. You take charge and fight back," and having been dumped by her friends in fourth grade, Alexia vows to stay mean and in control. Anna, an illegimate child in a small town, is shunned by the more religious kids, although Danielle is sometimes kind to her when Lexie isn't around. Peter has no real friends, either, but he gets laughs when he clowns in class. Jeffrey hates school, and it seems to hate him back. Luke, too, is out on a limb, the smartest kid in the class, resented by everyone. Seven different kids with their own problems, and now they are Mr. Terupt's, problems, too. Helping this class work together for a year is not going to be easy.

Things get better, but when the first big snow comes in February, Mr. Terupt senses that his class seriously needs to blow off steam. The new snow is deep and white, and he gets permission for his kids to have a snow party, a recess off the concrete basketball court for a change. A monster snow mound is waiting, in the middle of the playground, just right for a game of King of the Hill.

PETER

The snow was perfect. The kind that packed and formed super snowballs. I scooped up a handful as we walked across the field, squeezing it over and over. "No snowballs," Mr. T. had told us, so I stuffed it down in my pocket. It was too perfect to toss down.

I was already standing at the top of the hill when I saw Alexia on her way up. I gave her a little shove. I laughed hard. She didn't. Everyone joined in. We knocked each other down and wrestled each other off the top.

I'm not sure how it happened. I fell off the mountain. Lexie ran over and kicked snow in my face. I was angry. I got on my knees, and BAM! I got knocked down again. This time the person held my face down in the snow, too. I was so mad I jumped up, pulled that snowball out of my pocket, and chucked it for all I was worth.

And Mr. Terupt, on his way to cool the action, takes the now frozen snowball right in the head. Unconscious, he's taken to the hospital for surgery, where he remains in a coma for months.

Whose fault is it? As they wait for Mr. Terupt to wake up, each of the kids comes to understand that what they had done all year had something to do with what made Peter throw that snowball. If only Mr. T. would wake up, they could tell him how much they miss him.
In his first book Because of Mr. Terupt (Delacorte Press), Rob Buyea pulls off a tour de force, a coming-of-age novel for seven students, each wrestling with the realization in which each of them share some responsibility for Mr. Terupt's near-death experience. Because of Mr. Terupt, seven children, balanced the brink of adolescence, come to know and understand themselves and each other better and how each one has an effect on the whole class. Learning to be responsible for one's own behavior is a hard enough task, but realizing that each one's responsibility or irresponsibility affects them all is the important lesson that Mr. Terupt leaves with them. It's a changed group of kids that the recovering Mr. Terupt returns to tell that he'll be taking the class through sixth grade next year, in Buyea's sequel, Mr. Terupt Falls Again.

It's like catching lightning in a bottle to construct a story that captures the changes in seven fifth graders just coming into self-awareness, but this best-seller grabs every reader with a recognizable piece of himself in the cast of characters. Buyea takes his students month by month through the school year, set in acts and scenes rather than chapters, with each of the seven providing the narration with their own perception of what happens. Changing points of view offers readers insight as the different accounts of what happened come together as each begins to see the whole picture. It's quite a novel--of a master teacher as his lesson plan for his students unfolds.

"If the school year is a series of events, then Mr. Terupt is the catalyst that starts the chain reaction," says School Library Journal.

Holiday Expandinator: It's Halloween. I'm Turning Green! bhy Dan Gutman

I still can't get over the fact that on Halloween people just hand you candy and you don't even have to pay for it or anything! Halloween is the best holiday of all.

By now the streets were filled with lots of kids out trick-or-treating. We saw some pretty scary-looking costumes. Then I saw the most hideous, horrifying creature in the history of the world.

It was Andrea Young. And she was with her crybaby friend Emily. "We're good witches, not bad witches," Andrea informed us.

I'm a mutant zombie pirate," said Ryan. Arghhhhhh!"

"I'm the underwerewolf!" said Billy. Grrrrrrrr!"

"My mom told me that violent costumes are inappropriate for children," Andrea said.

The usual suspects are all assembled in Dan Gutman's latest in his My Weird School series, My Weird School Special: It's Halloween, I'm Turning Green! (Harper, 2013). The guys are randomly costumed,  (Billy in his annual appearance in his underpants), with the sole objective of collecting enough candy to last all year, while the girls ;loudly proclaim their plan to donate their candy to poor children and save the world, but before the two groups finish swapping insults, they are menaced by The Halloween Monster, a huge, hairy, black-furred dude who extorts all their loot.

It was the worst thing to happen since TV Turnoff Week!

To console the guys, Andrea persuades them to follow her to the weird Mrs. Yonker's house for a special Halloween treat. As fans of the series know, Mrs. Yonkers is bonkers, and this Halloween she has a new invention, the MicroMole 4000 Expandinator, to try out on her hapless students. And when she turns A. J.'s bite-sized Hershey bar into a confection the size of a Thanksgiving turkey, Arlo is all for giving their diminished cache of candy the Expandinator treatment.

But, as if on cue, who should appear again  but The Halloween Monster.  And this time he's not after their candy; he's after Mrs. Yonker's invention, with which he plans to control the known world! Can even Mrs. Yonkers out-wrestle this threat and make the world safe for the rest of the Weird School year?

The prolific Dan Gutman has several (marginally) more serious series to his credit (The Million Dollar Series, The Genius Files, and his notable historical fiction cum fantasy series, Baseball Card Adventures, all cleverly crafted tales often touted for "reluctant readers," but this one is simply full-fledged super-sized silliness devoted to adventures in the world of the Weird School and its kooky staff and students.  Gutman (or his weary but game editors) even adds a Halloween-themed appendix, replete with "Weird Halloween Facts," (...because it's really important to learn stuff so you won't grow up to be a dumbhead like certain people--Andrea--I know), "Mystery Maze," "Monster Match," "Wacky-Word Story Time," "My Weird School Trivia Questions," and much, MUCH MORE! Sure, it's the bite-sized fiction equivalent of trick-or-treat sweets, but a little bit of silliness, like a spoonful of sugar, makes the rest of the school year go down! Go ahead. Have a Green Halloween!

Sweet Revenge! The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman

"Never" sneered Miss Breakbone, "have I been asked to teach such a scraped-together, fiddling, twiddling, time-squandering, mind-wandering, doodling, dozing, don't-know dunderheads!"

In a cast-iron military gray suit, with a blood-red mouth, Miss Breakbone is the scariest teacher character yet, one who delights in adding a gold star to her "Crybabies Chart" whenever she makes one of her charges cry. Her imagined means of torture include a knotted scourge, a nail-studded club, and an electric chair bought with the proceeds of goods confiscated from her students.

But she has a fatal flaw:

Mistake Number 2: She has no eye for talent, an easy mistake to make in our case.

Talent there is among those dunderheads in her much maligned class. And when she gleefully confiscates the green-eyed, one-eared cat figurine that little "Junkyard" gleaned from the trash for his mom's birthday gift, Miss Breakbone has gone too far. Student "Einstein" (a whiz at problem-solving) plots a plan to carry off a cat burglary of her grimly defended house using the special "talents" of his class of "differently abled" dunderheads.

"Pencil" draws the layout of the grounds and house from memory, "Spider" scales the walls, while with a well-placed missile "Spitball" disables the motion sensor alarm system. "Clips" utilizes his impressive paperclip grappling lines to hoist the kids inside, and "Google-Eye" hynotizes the staff while the rest of the class carries off the heist of the one-eared cat, whose green eyes turn out to be priceless emeralds, leaving behind only a note for Miss Breakbone:

THE DUNDERHEADS WERE HERE.

Newbery Award-winning author Paul Fleischman's latest picture/beginning chapter book features lovable knuckleheads who prove their mettle and avenge a wronged comrad in his new The Dunderheads (Candlewick, 2009), all ably portrayed by comic artist David Roberts. Kids who earlier learned to love to hate Miss Viola Swamp will relish Miss Breakbone's well-deserved comeuppance with glee.

Back to School: Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth by Alison McGhee

I have a secret....

First grade begins today and I'm in big trouble.

It's a known fact that Mrs. Watson, the first-grade teacher, is a 300-year-old alien who steals baby teeth from her students.

How do I know? A second-grader told me.

Upper graders are all queens and kings of hyperbole when it comes to warnings for younger kids about school. And the worrywart heroine from Countdown to Kindergarten now has first grade to fret over, especially her teacher, said to be a purple-tongued, baby-tooth grabbing alien. And to make things worse, she HERSELF has just discovered her first LOOSE TOOTH!

Our girl decides that her only defense against the innocuous-looking Mrs. Watson is to keep her mouth firmly closed all the way through first grade.

This proves to be hard duty.

She can't open wide to sing, and she loves to sing.

She can't take part in Show and Share Time.

She can't volunteer to count backwards from ten to one, and that's her specialty.

She can't even have a snack at snack time.

But when Mrs. Watson asks the dreaded question, "Does anyone have a loose tooth?" our girl watches with horror as the boy in front of her opens wide to show off his wiggly incisor.

"MMMMMMMM!" she vocalizes, trying to warn him of the approaching danger. And then as Mrs. Watson draws closer, holding out her reputedly deadly TREAT BOX, our altruistic heroine just has to save him from his fate!

"NO!"

And the power of her warning forces her own loose tooth right out of her mouth and into Mrs. Watson's hand.

"Oh, my! I wasn't expecting THAT!" says Mrs. Watson.

("Neither was I," thinks our girl!)

"Class, we have a WINNER!" says Mrs. Watson.

And from inside that mysterious treat box Mrs. Watson extracts a giant "Twenty-Year" lollipop as the prize for the first lost tooth of the school year, a treat which our heroine proudly shows off to that inventive second grader as she takes the bus home after her first day in first grade.

Alison McGhee's Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth is a great cautionary tale for taking those word-of-mouth warnings from older kids with a bit of healty skepticism. As in their earlier collaboration, Harry Bliss' humorous illustrations provide quite a few chuckles as the story progresses. For example, book posters on the wall in the first grade hall include HARRY PLOTTER AND THE HUGE CAVITY, LIFE ON THE ROAD by The Tooth Fairy, FLOSS THROUGHOUT THE AGES by D. Cay, and, ominously posted beside her door, MRS. WATSON'S LOST TOOTH GALLERY, with photos of anxious gap-toothed kids.

It's a reassuring read for that worrisome countdown to the first day of school, with illustrator Harry Bliss expertly adding to the fun.

School Days: First Day Jitters by Julie Danneborg

"Sarah, dear, it's time to get up for school," Mr. Hartwell said, poking his head through the bedroom doorway. "You don't want to miss the first day at your new school, do you?"

"I'm not going," said Sarah. "I don't want to start over again. I hate my new school!"

It's a seasonal rerun of the first day of school. Sarah burrows back under the covers and pulls the pillow over her face. Entreaties about all the wonderful new friends waiting to be made cut no ice with her.

"That's just it. I don't know anybody and it will be hard and . . . .I just hate it, that's all."

Mr. Hartwell reminds Sarah that the school is expecting her, and amid visions of police cruisers unloading search parties, and schoolkids peering under desks and into lockers, she grumpily begins to yank her shirt over her head. Mr. Hartwell hands over some toast and a full lunchbox and, still watched by their bemused cat and dog, stuffs her quickly into the car. Sarah ducks low in her seat, and barely able to breathe, suffers first day jitters all the way to the door of the school.

There's no escape when Sarah arrives, though, as Principal Burton spots the car and bustles over, surrounded by a hoard of excited kids, to propel Sarah down the busy hall and into her new classroom, where a room full of curious kids swivel around to stare at her arrival. Mrs. Burton leads Sarah to the front of the room and clears her throat.

Class, attention, please!" she intones.

"Class, I'd would like you to meet...your new teacher, Mrs. Sarah Jane Hartwell!"

Illustrator Judy Love does a great job of cleverly keeping most of Sarah Jane under wraps and out of sight as she is hustled along all the way to her place at the head of her class. Although there are perhaps a few hints that Sarah Hartwell is more than a kid, we see mostly her bare feet sticking out of the covers, and the top of her head as she is bustled into the car and into the school. Julie Danneborg's First Day Jitters has a hilarious surprise ending as the reader realizes that it's a new teacher who is in the throes of those familiar first-day fears, suffering along with her students as they worry about starting all over again with a new class. A great read aloud for the night before the first day or for a new teacher's break-the-ice read-along for the beginning of a new school year.