This month's book reviews

A different kind of teacher takes over
in an Alaskan school in 1948

When this story starts, the teacher in the one-room schoolhouse in remote Alaska is pushing her way on the mail plane, in a hurry to get away as quickly as possible from her job. She just couldn’t stand the constant smell of fish anymore. She was just one of many who never stayed long in the small village trying to teach the Indian kids that could make it to school on a regular basis.

In October, Sam, the pilot, brought in a new teacher. When Sam was asked if the new teacher was nice, he told the kids, “This one’s got a little mileage. You kids are not going to get away with nothin’.”

The new teacher is from England. She wears pants. She had been teaching at another location in Alaska and had hoped to go home to visit her family in England. But she had been persuaded to finish out the school year as a replacement for the younger teacher who had suddenly quit.

The curious girls who went to spy on the new teacher were pleasantly surprised when she asked them in to help her straighten up the cabin that the teacher was given to live in. She told them to call her Miss Agnes and invited them in for tea. She talked to them just like they were grown-ups.

Miss Agnes wasn’t like any of the other teachers the kids had known. The first thing she did was to get rid of the old textbooks that were tattered and worn out anyway. She opened up a collection of books and novels that she had brought with her. She started reading aloud from the very first day of school. One of the favorites was “Robin Hood.” She also had brought new pencils and paints for the kids to use. Miss Agnes had also bought a record player and a variety of music that she played, for both herself and the kids.

It turned out to be a wonderful year for the village kids. They had never learned so much nor enjoyed school as much as they had that year. As the school year drew to a close, Miss Agnes prepared to return to her home in England. The kids were really upset that they were losing such a good teacher. But they had to say good-by to Miss Agnes.

When it was time for a new school year to start, one of the kids saw a light burning in the schoolhouse. It made them sad to think a new teacher was coming in to replace Miss Agnes. Then one of them saw Miss Agnes’ cat. Could it possibly be that Miss Agnes was coming back?

 

A black family copes with racial prejudice
in 1900’s rural Mississippi

The Logans were a hard-working black family that lived on a prosperous 200 acre farm. That part of rural Mississippi had been going through a drought so bad that creeks and wells were going dry. The Logan’s farm had a deep well with good water that never seemed to run dry. During a drought, neighbors, both black and white, knew they were welcome to come for water from the Logan well. Generally, these neighbors were polite and expressed appreciation for the generosity of the Logans.

One set of neighbors, the Simms, however, always seemed to be jealous of the Logan’s prosperity. Charlie and Ed-Rose, the two younger Simms boys, especially, were always trying to promote a fight with the younger Logan boys. When the Simms boys finally had to visit the Logan farm and take water from the well, they seemed eager to provoke thirteen-year-old Hammer Logan into a fight. It was only though the intervention of Mama Logan that Hammer was kept from a confrontation with the white brothers.

In those days in the rural South, a black person, even a young boy, who talked back to whites, risked a beating, or even worse, being lynched. Hammer was too proud to endure humiliation, especially from white boys who were about his own age. His younger brother, David, and his mother knew what danger he was putting himself in.

It seem clear from the beginning of the story that Hammer and Charlie were headed for a fight, one way or another. It was also clear that Charlie Simms would do all that he could to get Hammer into trouble with the whites in the area if Hammer ever raised a hand to protect himself. The sheriff would not take the word of a black against the charges of a white person, even a boy who was a known bully. Is there any way at all that this story can have a reasonably happy ending? As you can guess, the well plays a big part in the final outcome.

 

Is there a good excuse for a seventh
grader caught driving the school bus?

Kyle Brawly is the nice guy no one ever expects to get into trouble. He is a seventh grader at Hart Marks School, which all the kids call “Hard Marks” school. Mr. Chump, the principal at Hard Marks, has rules written down to control every kind of behavior. So it’s nearly impossible for anybody not to get into trouble as least sometimes - even Kyle. On the other hand, Kyle’s friends, Wilson, who invents ways to get into trouble, and Dusty, who thinks he can talk his way out of anything, are high on Mr. Chump’s list of usual suspects.

Things really began to get out of hand when the three boys accidentally left a shoe box with a wasp nest in it on the school bus. For reasons you can well imagine, Grandma, the regular bus driver had to be replaced. Her replacement was “Mister Sarge”, who had been a bus driver for the state department of corrections. His old job, then, had been driving penitentiary inmates. Sarge mistakenly thought that driving a school bus full of kids would be a piece of cake compared to his old job. The three boys had to try to prove him wrong.

Without going into a lot of detail that would spoil the story for you, Kyle ends up having to drive the school bus off a railroad track in order to keep them all, including Mr. Sarge, from getting hit by a train. Unfortunately, Kyle had only learned how to drive the bus. What he hadn’t learned was how to use the brakes and stop the bus. Talk about getting into trouble!

“Don’t get caught driving the school bus” is another book by Todd Strasser who has specialized in writing about kids in outlandish situations.

 

Sometimes “losers” don’t know they’re “losers”

Donald Zinkoff is really different. He’s klutzy, clumsy, and never wins at anything. But he doesn’t seem to notice. Everything to him is novel and interesting in his hometown of Heatherwood. He laughs often, and sometimes he laughs so hard, he can’t stop. Even though the other kids think he’s strange, Zinkoff doesn’t mind, he still loves school. And, oh yes, he really prefers to be called “Zinkoff.”

In the book, we follow Zinkoff’s activities from first grade until “graduation” from fifth grade at Satterfield Elementary School. Naturally, with the name Zinkoff, Donald is the last one called to receive his “diploma” from the Superintendent of Schools. Even we the readers wonder whether he will really graduate! But, he does, and he goes on into middle school.

In the first five grades, kids and teachers had come to sort of accept Zinkoff for his strange behaviors. He had some kind of status as a “loser”. Not so at Monroe Middle School. It was just as if he didn’t exist at all. His greatest disappointment was to never get picked to play in the schoolyard basketball games. He was just ignored by the other kids. That “nobodyness” was really hard for Zinkoff to bear.

During Zinkoff’s first winter at Monroe, the area has a huge snowstorm. The storm provides Zinkoff with the opportunity to perform a heroic act as he tries to save a lost little girl. Even though once again he is in the wrong place at the wrong time and almost loses his own life, Zinkoff emerges a hero in the eyes of the townspeople. Can this one act turn him around from being a lifelong “loser”?