Posted on by TracyC

Who’s Haunting the Eighth Grade?

Junior High Series

JHHaunting

#13 Who’s Haunting the Eighth Grade? by Kate Kenyon, 1988.

A group of eighth graders are going on a field trip to see a Shakespeare play in another town, but right from the start, everything seems to be going wrong. The teachers who are accompanying them on their trip are in a foul mood and spend a good part of the trip arguing with each other, which bothers the kids because they know that the teachers have recently become engaged to each other. Then, the bus breaks down in a small town before they can reach their destination.  The entire class is going to have to spend the night somewhere in the small town.

At first, things look like they’re going to improve when the group decides to spend the night at a local bed and breakfast in a big, beautiful, old house. However, their spirits are almost immediately dampened again when they are told that the house is haunted and that anyone who tries to stay there is scared away by the ghost. Still, they proceed with their plan to stay there in order to avoid staying at the dumpy local motel, the only other choice of accommodation.

Needless to say, before the night is over, the ghost puts in an appearance, and strange things start to happen.  By then, the students have come to feel sorry for the owner of the bed and breakfast, a nice older lady who grew up in the house but can’t really afford to keep it unless she can make her inn a success. Can the eighth graders catch the ghost, stop the hauntings, save the bed and breakfast from having to close, patch up the relationship between their feuding teachers, and still make it in time to see the play?

The book takes place in the 1980s, and the kids in the story are 14 years old. They mention the decade somewhere during the course of the story, and the descriptions of the clothes and some pop culture references make the time period fairly obvious. It also has some of the stock characters that books for pre-teens and early teens in the 80s have (ex. a boy-crazy space cadet, a level-headed health nut, a class clown, and a couple of young punks). Still, even though there are some things about the book that are a bit dated, it is still pretty enjoyable. The author has a sense of humor, and she plays with the characters’ stereotypes a bit. The class clown is secretly quite sensitive and even a bit perceptive. There are also a couple of fun scenes when the girl who is only interested in boys is shocked to discover that the boys are more interested in the mystery than in her.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash

JimmysBoa

The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble, pictures by Steven Kellogg, 1980.

The fun thing about this story is the backward way that the girl begins telling it, somewhat resembling The House that Jack Built, or better yet, the old No News Joke. The joke is really closer to the format of the story, with someone explaining the least eventful thing that happened as though it were the most important when it was just the end result of everything else.

A young girl (unnamed) arrives home, and her mother asks her how she liked her class trip to a farm that day. She says that it was boring until the cow started crying. When the mother asks her why the cow was crying, she says that the farmer wasn’t paying attention to where he was driving his tractor and knocked a haystack over on the cow.

As the mother continues to ask her daughter questions about what happened, backtracking through events, the real story begins to reveal itself:

The girl’s friend, Jimmy, had a pet boa constrictor, and he brought it along on the field trip so it could meet all the farm animals.

JimmysBoaFieldTrip

However, the chickens became frightened, and one of them laid an egg on one of their classmates. She thought that someone else threw it at her, so she threw another egg at him, which hit yet another student.

JimmysBoaEggs

From there, it turned into one big food fight, with students throwing eggs at each other, and when they ran out of eggs, they threw corn at each other. The corn was for the pigs to eat, so the pigs wandered onto the school bus and started eating the children’s lunches. From there, chaos ensued until the farmer’s wife suddenly screamed, and the children’s teacher hustled the children onto the school bus to go home.

JimmyBoaLeaving

The children never knew exactly why the farmer’s wife screamed (although the reason is actually in the title to the book), but two things quickly became evident: Jimmy accidentally left his boa constrictor behind on the farm, but he has acquired a pet pig because there was still one left on the bus.

This summary doesn’t quite do the story justice because the backwards way the story starts out is part of the fun. The pictures in the book are hilarious, and the boa constrictor is shown at the end to have become a beloved pet of the farmer and his wife, even making friends with the chickens.

This is a Reading Rainbow Book.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery at the Medieval Castle

Meg Mackintosh Mysteries

MMCastle

Meg Mackintosh and The Mystery at the Medieval Castle by Lucinda Landon, 1989.

Meg is visiting Dundare Castle with her teacher and some other students.  Dundare Castle is a special museum where people can learn about life in Medieval times, although it used to be a private home.  The owner’s family came from Scotland, and they built their home to look like their ancestors’ castle there.  Eleanor, the owner, now calls herself the Duchess of Dundare, and with her staff, dresses up to recreate the lives of people from the 1300s.

MMCastleTour

One of the Duchess’s prized possessions is a silver chalice studded with jewels that has been in her family for generations.  She keeps it on display in the castle’s “abbey,” guarded by the actor playing the part of a knight, Knight Henry.  But, when Meg and her classmates get to the abbey, the chalice is gone, and Knight Henry is lying on the floor, unconscious!

MMCastleTheft

Not long before they found Knight Henry, the kids had seen a robed figure run across the courtyard.  Monk William falls under suspicion, although the Duchess doesn’t really believe that he is guilty because he’s been with her family for a long time.  There are other possible suspects, and Meg believes that both the thief and the chalice are still in the castle.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

MMCastleSearch

My Reaction

I love this series because the books are interactive, giving readers the opportunity to figure out the clues and solve the mystery along with Meg. As Meg interviews the other actors in the castle and explores every room, readers are invited to study the pictures and consider the evidence to see if they can solve the mystery before Meg can.  At various points in the story, there are questions for the reader to consider, giving them the chance to pause and see if they’ve noticed what Meg has seen. I recommend that adults who are introducing children to the mystery genre read a couple of these stories along with them and discuss the clues as they go, helping children to learn how to notice details, solve puzzles, and think critically. It’s a good learning opportunity as well as a fun mystery!

Posted on by TracyC

The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System

MSBSolarSystem

The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System by Joanna Cole, 1990.

Ms. Frizzle’s class is planning a trip to the planetarium as part of their lesson about the solar system, but of course, their magic school bus has other plans.  When they get to the planetarium and find out that it’s closed for repairs, the bus sprouts rockets and takes them on a real trip through the solar system.

MSBSolarSystemBlastOff

This time, the class is accompanied by Arnold’s visiting cousin, Janet.  Janet is a show-off who brags constantly about everything, making up stories when she has nothing real to brag about.  She gets on the other kids’ nerves, but when they’re separated from Ms. Frizzle because she got out of the bus to fix a taillight broken in the asteroid field, Janet takes charge, using Ms. Frizzle’s lesson plan to continue the field trip, eventually figuring out how to turn the bus around to rescue her and get back to Earth.

MSBSolarSystemMoon

All through the book, there are facts about the sun, the moon, and the planets in the solar system from the students’ reports.  Each time they stop at a planet, a scale shows the difference between Arnold’s weight on Earth and his weight on each planet.  The book considers Pluto to be a planet because it was written before its planet status was reconsidered.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

MSBSolarSystemRescue

Posted on by TracyC

The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body

MSBHumanBody

The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole, 1989.

Ms. Frizzle’s class is now studying the human body, and they are going to take a trip to the science museum to see an exhibit about how bodies digest food for energy.  Of course, this is not going to be a normal field trip, but it is weirder than anything the students could have expected.

MSBHumanBodyFilm

After the class stops at a park for lunch, Arnold is accidentally left behind, and before they can go back for him, the bus shrinks small and is accidentally swallowed by Arnold.

MSBHumanBodySwallow

While his classmates take a trip through Arnold’s body, Arnold panics at being left behind and makes his way back to school by himself, accompanied by a sympathetic bird, not knowing where the rest of the class went.

MSBHumanBodySneeze

The book ends with a section of true and false questions that point out the impossibilities of the class’s field trip inside a student’s body, but also points out that the information about the human body itself is true.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth

The Magic School Bus

MSBEarth

The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole, 1987.

Ms. Frizzle’s class has a new student, Phoebe, who is about to discover that Ms. Frizzle is no ordinary teacher and that her class trips are nothing like any other field trip.  Ms. Frizzle’s class is studying the earth and rocks, and she assigns the students homework to find a rock and bring it to class.

MSBEarthHomework

However, even though it sounds like an easy assignment, only one person actually brought a real rock to class.  The others either didn’t bring anything or brought in pieces of old Styrofoam, bits of broken glass, or chips of concrete from the sidewalk.  With only one real rock for the class’s rock collection, Ms. Frizzle decides that the class should to on a trip to collect more.

MSBEarthFieldTrip

She takes the class on a field trip to a real field, but they’re not just going to collect rocks that they find lying on the ground.  The bus changes itself into a steam shovel, and Ms. Frizzle passes out shovels and jackhammers to the students.  They start digging down into the earth, uncovering new layers of rock as Ms. Frizzle explains what types of rocks are in the layers and how they formed.

MSBEarthDigging

Before the field trip is over, the school bus, along with all the students, falls through the ground and into a massive cave.  They continue traveling all the way down through the center of the earth and out the other side, ending up on a volcano, where Ms. Frizzle calmly explains about volcanic rocks.

MSBEarthVolcano.jpg

I like the picture at the end of the book, after the kids return to school, which points out that there are things all around them that are made out of the different kinds of rocks and minerals that they learned about on their trip.  Each type of rock is also shown in the class’s rock collection along with notes about the type of each rock and how it can be used.

MSBEarthReturn

The book ends with a mock phone conversation between a reader and the author and artist about the impossible things that happen in the book but noting the factual information contained in the story.  The book was featured on Reading Rainbow.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

MSBEarthRockCollection

Posted on by TracyC

The Mona Lisa Mystery

monalisamystery

The Mona Lisa Mystery by Pat Hutchins, 1981.

Class 3 from Hampstead Primary School is taking a trip to France with their teacher, Mr. Jones. Miss Barker, their headmistress, was supposed to go with them, but she became ill, so their substitute French teacher, Miss Parker, will be going with them instead.  The kids aren’t happy about the substitution because they really like Miss Barker, and Miss Parker isn’t nearly as nice.

From the very beginning of the trip, strange things start happening. A black car follows them to the ferry and even around France. A doctor they meet on the ferry takes a room at their hotel, and unusual characters follow them everywhere they go, some of them in disguise. One of them even enters Jessica and Avril’s hotel room in the middle of the night.

At first, the children think that someone may be trying to kidnap Miss Parker since the mysterious strangers are showing unusual interest in her.  Then, the Mona Lisa is stolen while the children visit the Louvre!  The thief temporarily holds Jessica hostage before making his escape. Later, the painting shows up at their hotel, and Mr. Jones is arrested as a conspirator in the crime!

The children struggle to unravel the clues and the tangled mass of identities and prove their teacher’s innocence.  Who was really following who, who is the real conspirator, and can the children prove it and find the missing painting?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

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My Reaction

When I was a kid, I wished that my class could take a field trip to a foreign country! Technically, I suppose we could have since I live in a border state, but there’s nothing to see in the border towns here that would be as exciting as the Louvre. But, part of the fun of reading books like this is vicariously experiencing things you otherwise wouldn’t do.

This mystery story is the kind I think of as a fun romp – the characters are traveling around a bit and hijinks ensue as the students try to solve the mystery and save both the Mona Lisa and their teachers. One of my favorite parts as a kid was the running gag with the ketchup bottle.

Posted on by TracyC

Return of the Third-Grade Ghosthunters

return3gghostThe Return of the Third-Grade Ghosthunters by Grace Maccarone, 1989.

This is part of the Third Grade Ghosthunters series.

The same kids who were assigned to figure out the mysterious happenings at their school are now going on a field trip to a farm with their class. They’ll be spending a couple of days on the farm, sleeping over.  Adam has been looking forward to the trip, and he brings his ghost hunting gear with him, just in case.  He hasn’t lost his taste for ghost stories since their last adventure.

At first, things are pretty normal.  Then, during the night, the boys hear howling and see apparitions of a ghostly wolf in their bunk house. Could the farm be haunted?  Or is this some kind of mean joke?  Perhaps it’s the work of the class bully, Jeff? The ghost hunting committee assembles again to solve the mystery.

return3gghostpic2They try to use scientific methods to study the haunting.  They measure the placement of the furniture to see if anything moves while they’re out and sprinkle flour on the floor to get footprints.  But, even though they watch carefully and don’t see anyone enter the bunk house, when they go inside, everything is a mess, and the flour doesn’t appear disturbed.  Everyone else is about ready to admit that this one is a real ghost, but Adam has another theory.

The solution has an interesting twist to it. It’s a good mystery for kids beginning chapter books who like a little creepiness in their reading.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.