The team of Audrey Vernick, Liz Garton Scanlon and Chris Raschka probably had a substitute teacher or two during their school days. However, I wonder if they were as unsure of them as the narrator is of their substitute teacher in Dear Substitute. Finding out that their teacher is out unexpectantly (why did Mrs. Giordano not warn them?) all sorts of feelings pop up for one student. After all, Miss Pelly changes their routines, cannot pronounce some of the student’s names, she reads new books […]
Misleading title, decent book.
From the title you’re probably thinking this is some kind of gossipy expose on the lives of teachers, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was kinda what I wanted it to be. (I know, I know. Please don’t judge me.) It was totally not that. It’s basically a book of what the author calls interlocking essays, all of which are really either meditations or vignettes on teaching. If that’s what you’re looking for, it’s a worthy read. Fortunately, that’s also a […]
Ms. Hempel Chronicles
Well this is just a charming little book. Ms. Hempel is a twenty-something schoolteacher who lives a pretty normal, almost mundane, life. She attends the school talent show. She muses on the odd relationship between student and teacher, and sometimes teacher and teacher. She gets engaged. She breaks up. She takes kids on field trips. She wants to be the young cool teacher but she also feels that she ought to learn how to be a disciplinarian. The book is a novel, sort of, in […]