Mr. Fabiano was a popular sixth grade teacher at Paulsen elementary School. The kids all liked him and most of the girls had a crush on him. They weren't pleased when they heard one Friday morning that their class was to be taught by a substitute teacher, Mrs. Muchmore. Of course, they had no way of knowing that Mrs. Muchmore had called the school office and reported that she was too ill to cover the class. The school secretary took a note for Mr. Peacock, the principal. The note had fallen behind a radiator, so, to the kids' surprise, no substitute showed up in the classroom. Nobody in the office knew the kids were on their own.

All the kids but one wanted to run the class without a teacher. Jessica wanted to report to the office that they had no teacher. She argued that it was illegal, even dangerous, to hold class without a teacher present. She was voted down, however, and the class decided to try to go the whole day without a teacher. Karen, the natural leader in the classroom, managed to keep the kids pretty well on task most of the day. There was some rowdiness, but, in general, the kids kept to the normal schedule. They had Mr. Fabiano's lesson plans to go by. Friday was a day when they did a lot of writing in class. It was late in the day when things started to come apart. It happened when kids were reading essays that they had written about things that had taken place that year.

The kids had lost a classmate about six months earlier. Tommy Feathers had died suddenly and unexpectedly. Tommy had been picked on by some of the boys, especially by Bastian Fauvell, who seemed to like to verbally put down classmates. In her writing Rachel had accused Bastian of picking on Tommy before he died. Bastian was so hurt he cried in class, which seemed to be out of character for him. Letters the kids wrote to Mr. Fabiano at the end of the day on Friday helped clarify how each of them felt about the day's events.

Humphrey, a classroom's pet hamster,
tries to help kids with their problems

Humphrey, a hamster, is one of the pets in room 26 of Longfellow Elementary School. His neighbor is Og, the frog who lives in a tank next to Humphrey's cage. Unbeknown to the teacher and students in room 26, Humphrey is perfectly capable of understanding human speech. Of course, he can only answer with "squeak, squeak." Even more astonishing, Humphrey has taught himself to keep notes in a notebook, which he hides under the sawdust at the bottom of his cage. Also unknown to the teacher and the class is the fact that Humphrey can let himself in and out of his cage whenever he wants to.

The kids in room 26 can be picked to take Humphrey home on weekends. The kids compete for that privilege. Humphrey enjoys these visits but sometime they result in unusual adventures for him. An especially adventurous home is one with an inquisitive cat. Even the evenings after school are enjoyable to Humphrey. He specially likes Aldo Amato, the school custodian who cleans the room every evening. But Humphrey is shocked when a strangely dressed female shows up one evening in place of Aldo. This person has a strange electronic device in her ear. Could this be an alien from outer space like one he saw in a movie while staying with one of the kids on a weekend?

Humphrey tries to carry on with his classroom responsibilities as usual. But he keeps worrying about the alien showing up in the evenings. Things aren't looking good for him and for Og if this alien keeps showing up after school. Will Aldo ever return? Are the kids in class likely to be in any danger? Humphrey is one smart and observant hamster but sometimes his imagination runs away with him. There are plenty of adventures, real and imagined, to keep a young reader involved in Humphrey's story.

Kids in a math class try to get into
the Guinness Book of World Records

Mr. Collins has been a middle school math teacher for twenty years. He teaches in Washington Middle School, an inner-city school in Cleveland, Ohio. This year he has a class that is the worst one he has ever tried to teach. He was just about to give up, when he had an idea. He had read about a class in California that had built the world's largest tetrahedron. (A tetrahedron is a pyramid shaped object with four triangle-shaped sides.) The California prize-winner had 4096 pieces. Mr. Collins wondered if his totally unmotivated class would have any interest at all in building an even bigger one. What did he have to lose to give it a try?

The story focuses on four students in Mr. Collins' math class. First is James Harris III, who hates math and thinks of himself as an artist because he likes to draw pictures. Second is Rhondell, who is quiet, likes to learn big words, and hopes someday to get into college. Third is Sharice, who is living with her fifth foster parent since her grandma died. Sharice doesn't want the other kids to know about her life ...or lack of one. Finally, there is Marcel, whose father owns Willy Q's Barbecue where Marcel works after school and weekends. His father is a war veteran and works hard at making his little restaurant a success. These are the kids that Mr. Collins is trying to lure into building the world's largest tetrahedron.

The kids decide the need to form a club and elect a president. They will work after school at building the tetrahedron. Since the big tetrahedron will be made of little pyramid-shapes glued together, they have to figure out how many little ones they will have to make. What kind of glue will they use? What will the pyramids be made out of? Are colors important? How high will the finished product be? They are using math and making decisions without realizing they are problem solving. Mr. Collins is both pleased and worried. Will the kids stay with the project until its completion?

Each of the kids has different problems in his or her life. Also each of them profits in a different way from the class project. Can they learn to work together? Their combined stories make a very interesting little book titled "All of the Above" by author Shelley Pearsall.