The Adventures of the Red Tape Gang by Joan Lowery Nixon, 1974.
Hardcover editions of this book are called The Mysterious Red Tape Gang.
Mike’s father loves to read the newspaper every morning and rant about the stories that make him angry. It annoys him how little gets accomplished because there’s so much “red tape” involved. Take the case of their neighbor, Mr. Hartwell. He has a large bush that’s dangerously close to the corner of their street and has caused several accidents. The city wants him to cut it, but he refuses to do so out of meanness and stubbornness. Now, the city has to go through all kinds of red tape to make it happen.
His father’s rants give Mike an idea. Why not put the new clubhouse he and his friends are working on to good use and form a club to right the wrongs of their neighborhood and make all of that red tape unnecessary? Besides, cutting the Hartwells’ bush in the middle of the night would be a great joke on Mr. Hartwell’s nosy daughter, Linda Jean, who’s always hanging around, getting in the way of Mike and his friends.
Mike’s friends love the idea of being secret neighborhood heroes, but of course, it turns out to be harder than they expected. After trimming the Hartwells’ bush as best they can, they decide that instead of just cutting the bush, it would be better to move it to a completely different spot so there will be no need to cut it again when it grows out. But, Mr. Hartwell almost catches them in their midnight landscaping, and when Linda Jean finds Mike’s shears, they’re forced to let her into their club.
Their next project, boarding up the doors and windows of an abandoned house so that curious children won’t wander in and get hurt, also comes with complications. It seems that the house wasn’t quite as abandoned as everyone thought. Still, the Red Tape Gang accomplishes something even greater than just keeping kids out of the house and successfully keeps their identities secret. But while they’re congratulating themselves on the wonderful job they’ve been doing, they discover that their neighborhood contains far more serious problems than they originally thought. Their activities are also starting to come to the attention of the wrong people. And, for one member of the group, these problems hit dangerously close to home.
This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. The descriptions of the kids’ midnight excursions are hilarious and make you want to cheer them on!
This book is currently available online through Internet Archive.
Our Teacher Is Missing by Mary Frances Shura, 1992.
Basically, 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.
Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger by Louis Sachar, 1995.
Meanwhile, 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.
Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar, 1989.
Socks 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.
Each 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. 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.
Twenty and Ten by Claire Bishop, 1952.
The two groups of children soon make friends, and one of the Jewish children, Arthur, shares something special with his new friend, Henry: a small piece of chocolate. With the rationing, none of them have seen chocolate in a long time. Henry decides to share a little with Janet because he likes her, and they decide to hide the rest and save it for later. When Denise spies them with the chocolate and wants to have a little herself, she steals the piece of chocolate from where Henry has hidden it. The others chase after her to get the chocolate back, and they end up accidentally discovering a cave that none of them knew was there.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 