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Beware the Fish!

bewarefishBeware the Fish! by Gordon Korman, 1980.

In spite of MacDonald Hall’s prestigious reputation, it is continually plagued by money problems.  The students can’t help but notice all the budget cutbacks, and now, there are rumors that the school might even have to close permanently.  The last thing anyone wants is to leave MacDonald Hall.  Bruno, the school’s resident idea man and master prankster, decides to spearhead a movement to raise money and publicity for MacDonald Hall so they can save the school!

Bruno, his best friend Boots, and their other fellow students try everything they can think of to spread the word about what a great place MacDonald Hall is so that enrollment will go up and the school can earn enough money to stay open.  They enlist the help of the girls at the nearby finishing school to help them break a world record.  The school’s science whiz, Elmer, shows the boys some of his inventions in the hope that one of them will make the school famous.

Unfortunately, as usual, nothing turns out as planned.  World records are extremely difficult to break, and Elmer’s inventions backfire.  One of his inventions backfires in such a way that it comes to the attention of the local police, and even the government becomes convinced that a gang of terrorists may be operating somewhere in the vicinity of MacDonald Hall.

The boys try to keep their activities secret from their headmaster, Mr. Sturgeon (or, as the boys nickname him, “The Fish”), while government agents snoop around, looking for the head of the organization that’s been issuing cryptic messages over television signals, a shadowy figure known only as “The Fish.”

This book is part of the MacDonald Hall Series (or Bruno and Boots series).  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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This Can’t Be Happening At MacDonald Hall

macdonaldhallThis Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman, 1978.

Bruno and Melvin (called Boots) have been roommates ever since they began attending boarding school at MacDonald Hall.  The two of them are best friends, and they do everything together.  Quite a lot of what they do involves practical jokes.  But, they’ve really been pushing the limit with their antics, and when they go a little too far during a hockey game, the headmaster gives them the ultimate punishment: they can no longer share a room.  Mr. Sturgeon thinks that they’re a bad influence on each other.  Each of them is assigned to a new roommate, and they won’t even be able to hang out together.

The prospect of losing each other as best friends is too much for Bruno and Boots. Besides, neither of them likes their new roommates.  Boots has to share a room with George, who comes from a wealthy family and is only interested in money.  George is also a germophobe who hates it that Boots sneezes every morning when he wakes up.  Bruno’s new roommate is Elmer, the school’s supreme science nerd.  Elmer isn’t happy about Bruno’s presence, either, because Bruno and his belongings take up valuable space that Elmer requires for his many projects.  Obviously, the situation is completely intolerable for everyone.

Bruno, the idea man of the duo, declares that he will find a way for him and Boots to become roommates again.  They meet secretly at night to discuss their plans.  The boys try every tactic they can think of.  They try making themselves completely obnoxious to their new roommates so that Mr. Sturgeon will have pity on them and give them their old room assignments.  They try framing George and Elmer for some outrageous pranks of their own so Mr. Sturgeon will think that they’re a bad influence on Bruno and Boots.  Bruno and Boots even try (as an extreme measure) behaving themselves!  What will finally work?

This is the first book in the MacDonald Hall Series (or Bruno and Boots) series.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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The D- Poems of Jeremy Bloom

jeremybloomThe D- Poems of Jeremy Bloom by Gordon Korman and Bernice Korman, 1992.

This book is mostly a collection of funny poems, but there is an overarching story to them.  Jeremy Bloom, a typical middle school slacker, wanted to sign up for the easiest elective course he possibly could.  But, by accident, he overslept on the first day of school, and by the time he got there, sign-ups had already started and the easiest and most popular electives were full.  Desperately trying to find something easy and with as little work possible under the remaining electives, Jeremy decided to sign up for Pottery. (“It was no Snooze Patrol, but how hard could it be to make ashtrays?”)  Only, he made another mistake and accidentally signed up for Poetry, and once he was enrolled, there was no way out of it.  He was committed to spending a year writing poetry.

jeremybloompoemJeremy tries to make the best of things, but somehow (partly through his own fault and partly by accident), he continually manages to do things to annoy his poetry teacher, Ms. Terranova (or, as the kids call her, Ms. Pterodactyl, thanks to a mistake Jeremy made when he said her name on the first day of class).  Every single poem Jeremy writes during the year receives the same grade: D-.  The book is divided into different periods of Jeremy’s work, along with an explanation about what Jeremy did during each period to tick off his teacher.  At the end, the reader can be the judge: Are Jeremy’s D- grades because he’s a terrible poet or because his teacher is mad at Jeremy for everything else he does during the year?  (The answer is pretty obvious.)

My favorite poems are the longer ones like “Why I Was Late,” “The Wheeler-Dealer,” and “No Boring Parts Allowed.”  Just to give you an idea of what the poems are like (although they are written in a variety of styles), here’s another one of my favorites, “Honesty Is Not Always the Best Policy.”

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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My Crazy Cousin Courtney Returns Again

CousinCourtneyReturnsMy Crazy Cousin Courtney Returns Again by Judi Miller, 1995.

Courtney is back in New York with her cousin Cathy and living her dream of becoming an actress!  Courtney has landed a part in a movie called The Laundry Bag Murder (see the first book in the series for that explanation).  With Courtney’s new professional responsibilities, Cathy hopes that this visit will be quieter than their last ones, but no such luck.  Excitement follows Courtney wherever she goes, and if things aren’t exciting enough to suit her, she knows how to stir them up!

When Cathy and Courtney go to the Central Park Zoo to try out Courtney’s new video camera, Courtney ends up turning the expedition into a vampire hunt that ends up catching a criminal.  When they go to see a friend’s rock band perform at a bar, Courtney turns a barroom brawl into a hug-in.

Courtney is also giving Cathy relationship advice.  Cathy and Frank are boyfriend and girlfriend now, but both of them are pretty shy.  Too shy to even go on a real date.  Courtney says that maybe Cathy should act a little helpless to bring out Frank’s protective instincts and to get his attention.  She says that Cathy should tell Frank that she thinks someone might be following her around (it’s not a lie if Cathy isn’t sure).  That way, Frank will want to spend more time with her to look after her.

With some reservations, Cathy does tell Frank someone may be following her, which does get Frank’s attention.  Then, to Cathy’s surprise, she actually does notice someone following her around.  At first, she suspects that Courtney got another actress to follow her for awhile to make her story to Frank true, but it turns out, that’s not the case at all.  Who is that mysterious woman in the sunglasses and what does she want?

There is another book in the series which I don’t have and haven’t read called My Crazy Cousin Courtney Gets Crazier.  Courtney ends up going to school in New York with Cathy because she lands a role in another movie which will be shooting there during the fall.

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My Crazy Cousin Courtney Comes Back

CousinCourtneyBackMy Crazy Cousin Courtney Comes Back by Judi Miller, 1994.

The title is a little deceptive because Courtney hasn’t come back to New York to visit Cathy.  This time, Cathy has flown to Beverly Hills to spend Christmas with Courtney.  Courtney’s parents are now divorced, and Courtney’s adjusting to it, but she’s still as wild and unpredictable as she ever was.

Almost as soon as Cathy arrives, Courtney wakes her in the middle of the night to tell her that she needs her help to rescue an old man who’s being held against his will and maybe bring him cans of soup and sauerkraut.  Courtney’s heart is always in the right place, but as usual, she has the wrong idea.  In the best Courtney tradition, things work out amazingly well in the end.

In between spotting movie stars and getting into trouble, the girls manage to find time to get their nails done and visit with their friend Frank, who they met last summer in New York.  Cathy had fallen in love with Frank until she realized that he was more interested in being Courtney’s boyfriend.  Seeing him again over Christmas has brought back Cathy’s awkward feelings.  She still likes Frank, but the last thing she wants to do is to take a guy away from her lovable, if crazy, cousin.  But, if there’s one thing that Courtney specializes in, it’s happy endings.

This book isn’t as introspective as the first one in the series was, although Courtney and Cathy still help each other with their opposite personalities.  Cathy’s common sense and restraint can’t stop Courtney in her wild escapades, but she does inspire Courtney to be more thoughtful.  Courtney also helps Cathy to get out of shell, speak up for herself, have a little excitement, and see the possibilities that life has to offer.

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My Crazy Cousin Courtney

CousinCourtneyMy Crazy Cousin Courtney by Judi Miller, 1993.

Cathy Bushwick usually spends the summer at camp, but this summer, her mother is having her stay in the city because her cousin Courtney is coming to visit them in New York.  Cathy and Courtney are actually second cousins because their mothers are first cousins.  They’re the same age (thirteen) and met once when they were five, but neither of them remembers it.  All that Cathy really knows about Courtney before she arrives is that she’s somewhat neurotic (Courtney is troubled by anxiety and panic attacks) and that the reason she’s coming to visit is that her parents are thinking of getting a divorce and need time alone to discuss it.

Cathy understands what it’s like to live with a single parent.  Her parents are divorced, and her father went to California years ago to become an actor.  She hasn’t heard from him since.  Her mother used to be an actress, but with Cathy to take care of, she became a theatrical agent for animals instead (she finds animals for people to use in commercials).  So, when Cathy hears that Courtney will be visiting from Beverly Hills, she’s very excited.  At first, she hopes that she and Courtney will be like sisters and that Courtney might have even heard of her father in California.

Cathy’s illusions are shattered almost immediately.  Courtney not only hasn’t heard of her father but she’s nothing like Cathy imagined.  When she and her mother go to meet her at the airport, she’s wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and a hot pink shirt that says, “KISS ME QUICK,” and she has a pile of luggage.  She’s used to having money and getting the best of everything, and she’s immediately disappointed with the modest apartment where Cathy and her mother live.  When she learns that they don’t even have a pool, she gets upset and wants to go home.  But, it’s no use.  She’s stuck there for the summer.  And, they’re stuck with her.

But, things don’t turn out to be as bad as Cathy fears they’re going to be.  In some ways, they’re worse.  Once Courtney reconciles herself to spending the summer in New York, she has some very specific ideas about things that she’d like to do, and a lot of them end up getting the girls in trouble.  Shy, sensible Cathy finds herself getting locked in Tiffany’s after closing time because Courtney thought she saw a spy stealing their designs, rescuing Courtney from the dolphin pool at the aquarium, and lots of other things that she never thought she’d find herself doing.  Then, one day, the girls think they’ve witnessed a murder.  What are they going to do?  Is Cathy going to survive the summer with her crazy cousin Courtney?

This book is the first in a series about Cathy and Courtney.  Courtney may be a bit wild, but she’s not as crazy as Cathy thinks.  Over the course of the summer, the two become friends, and they learn quite a few things about each other and about themselves.  By the time Courtney has to go home, a little of each of them has rubbed off on the other, and neither will be quite the same again.

The book is available online through Internet Archive.

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Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School

SidewaysArithmetic

Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School by Louis Sachar, 1989.

This is a companion book to the Wayside School Series.  Unlike the other books in the series, it doesn’t contain stories.  It talks about the things that kids at Wayside School study, partly from the point of view of Sue, a new student who is stunned to learn that kids at Wayside School do arithmetic with words, not numbers.

SidewaysArithmeticPicBasically, it’s a puzzle book.  In the Arithmetic section, the letters in the words stand for numbers.  The book gives an example to demonstrate how to figure out which numbers the letters stand for.  The problems get harder through the sections labeled Numbers, Pronouns, and Paragraphs.

From the Recess section on, there are logic puzzles.  In Recess, you have to use the information provided to figure out what games the children play at recess.  In Science, Geography, Etc. (that’s one chapter), you have to figure out who got the right answers to the tests from the information provided. You see the answers five of them got and know that only one of them got all the answers right and no two of them had the same score. When you look in the back to see if you solved the problem right, you get to see what the test was actually about, and that’s the funniest part.  The Lunch section combines logic puzzles with math.  The True or False section gives you true/false questions to answer based on a series of statements about which of them are true or false.  Finally, in the After School section, Joy and Sue give up and go home (as well they should).

I like the book because I like puzzles, and there are funny little stories around the problems and answers.  All of the puzzles are answerable (except for one or two where the correct answer is that they’re impossible, which is why Joy should definitely get up and go home, but you’ll figure that out way before she does).  If you like puzzles and the Wayside School series, you’d like this book.  If you don’t like puzzles, you can skip this and just stick to the regular books in the series (as regular as Wayside School gets).  If you like puzzles but don’t know about the Wayside School series, you could still find it interesting but you wouldn’t really appreciate the funny parts.  If you don’t like the Wayside School series or puzzles, you probably aren’t reading this right now, so don’t worry about it.

This book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger

WaysideStrangerWayside School Gets a Little Stranger by Louis Sachar, 1995.

Just when you didn’t think it was possible . . .

Having finally managed to remove all of the cows from Wayside School (see the last story in the previous book in the Wayside School Series), Louis declares that Wayside School is ready for the students to return.  Everyone is glad because they were all sent to far more normal schools while Wayside was closed, and they hated it.  Nothing normal ever happens at Wayside, the school that was built sideways (and has a missing floor, where all the really strange stuff happens).

But, things are about to get stranger yet.  The school hires a new school counselor (they probably needed one) named Dr. Pickell (or Dr. Pickle, if you prefer).  He takes the job when he can’t practice psychiatry anymore because of his tendency to play practical jokes on people while they’re under hypnosis.  Can he finally cure Paul of his desire to pull Leslie’s pigtails?

WaysideStrangerPic1Meanwhile, the principal declares that “door” is a very bad word and that everyone should say “goozack” instead.  Mrs. Jewls tells the children to write poems about colors, but some colors rhyme better than others.  Kathy tries to convince everyone that Santa doesn’t exist.  Miss Zarves (who also doesn’t exist), laments about how difficult teaching really is.

Then, the children learn something really surprising: Mrs. Jewls is expecting a baby!  She has to take a break from teaching, and the children have a series of substitutes who are stranger than Mrs. Jewls.  Mr. Gorf turns out to be Mrs. Gorf’s son, and he wants revenge.  Mrs. Drazil turns out to be Louis’s old teacher, the one he was always afraid of, and she wants revenge.  Mrs. Nogard is an unhappy person who wants to make other people unhappy . . . until she realizes that isn’t what she really wants.  Wayside School may be strange, but it does have happy endings!

By the way, anyone notice what the substitutes’ names spell backward?

This book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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Wayside School is Falling Down

WaysideFallingWayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar, 1989.

The books in the Wayside School Series are collections of short, funny stories about a school that was accidentally built sideways.  Instead of being a one-story school with thirty classrooms all in a row, Wayside School is a thirty-story school with only one classroom on each floor.  Strange things are always happening there. The stories mostly focus on the kids in Mrs. Jewls’s class on the top floor of the school.  Like the first book in the series, there are 30 short stories in this book.

It would take too long to describe all the stories in the book individually, but they’re just as funny as in the first one.  Mrs. Jewls has a new student, Mark Miller, except that Mark Miller is really Benjamin Nushmutt.  Benjamin would correct Mrs. Jewls except that he seems to be a much better and more popular student as Mark Miller.  But, as he soon learns, answering to a name that isn’t yours is about the least strange thing at his new school.

WaysidePic1Socks figure into many of the stories, with a special jingle invented by Mac, who used to be named Nancy until he traded names with a girl.  It’s fortunate that Mac invented the jingle because Allison uses it to free herself from the non-existent 19th story.  Myron chooses freedom over safety, emancipating himself from the school’s rules.  Bebe invents a younger brother, and things turn around for Leslie when her pigtails pull Paul.  Rondi fears that she’s no longer cute now that her front teeth have grown in.  Joy learns the best thing about the toy dog that Todd brought to school, and Ron actually tries the school lunch.

There are plenty of lessons to learn.  Watch as Mrs. Jewls teaches her class about gravity using her brand new computer!  Dana thinks that she hates stories until she learns that she actually loves them.  Mrs. Jewls teaches Jason not to chew pencils using masking tape.  Dameon learns about love via a dead rat.  Stephen explains how uncomfortable clothes and strangling ties make people look important, and Mrs. Jewls says that it’s what’s underneath that counts, so it’s best to wear expensive undies.  Then, everyone learns to tango in dance class (except Myron).

But, one windy day, the children are faced with an alarming possibility: Can their overly-tall school actually fall down?  (Lyrics courtesy of Kathy, who still hates everyone.)

This book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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Sideways Stories From Wayside School

Wayside

Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar, 1978.

The books in the Wayside School Series are collections of short, funny stories about a school that was accidentally built sideways.  Instead of being a one-story school with thirty classrooms all in a row, Wayside School is a thirty-story school with only one classroom on each floor (the compensation is the extra-large playground).  Also, they accidentally left off the 19th story.  Strange things happen at the school.  Even stranger ones happen on the non-existent 19th story.  But, the stories mostly focus on the kids on the top floor of the school.

WaysideStoriesPic1Each of the books contains thirty stories, like the school (ha, ha!).  It would take awhile to describe them all, but there are stories about each of the kids in Mrs. Jewls’s class.  Mrs. Jewls took over the class on the 30th floor after Mrs. Gorf accidentally turned herself into an apple.  She used to turn her students into apples when they made her mad, but most forms of revenge backfire eventually.  Mrs. Gorf ends up turning herself into an apple when one of her students holds up a mirror, and then, Louis the yard teacher eats her.

Mrs. Jewls is a much better teacher.  She helps Joe learn to count.  Joe can usually only get the right answer when he counts numbers in the wrong order.  She helps John learn to read right-side up instead of upside down.  She teaches Bebe that when it comes to art, quantity doesn’t equal quality (although Bebe did have a pretty good system going there for awhile) and cures Dana’s mosquito bites with the power of arithmetic.  Mrs. Jewls even invents new flavors of ice cream when Maurecia gets tired of every flavor in existence.

The students in Mrs. Jewl’s class are pretty amazing, too.  Todd saves the day when confused bank robbers burst into the class.  Sharie shows her intelligence by sleeping in class, D.J. smiles constantly, and Kathy hates everyone and everything.  Rondi is cute for the things she doesn’t have (like her two missing teeth) and the stuff she doesn’t do (everyone laughs when she doesn’t tell a joke), but what can she do about it?  Paul just wants to pull Leslie’s pigtails, and Leslie thinks maybe she should sell her toes because she can’t find a use for them.

WaysideStoriesPic2Mrs. Gorf does make one more reappearance on the Friday before Halloween.  Mrs. Jewls and the children argue that she can’t haunt the school if it’s not Halloween, but when Halloween falls on a weekend, schools have to have their Halloween party on the Friday before.  Stephen’s just happy that the ghost of Mrs. Gorf justifies his costume.

As Louis the yard teacher says, “It has been said that these stories are strange and silly.  That is probably true. However, when I told stories about you to the children at Wayside, they thought you were strange and silly. That is also probably true.”  Fair is fair.

This book is available online through Internet Archive.