Ms. Coco is loco!

Gr 1-5-It's April-National Poetry Month-and Ms. Coco, the goofy, gifted, and talented teacher who cries when she sees a sunset or reads a sad poem, has assigned her students to write one poem a day. A.J. is appalled that poetry gets a whole month but National Skateboarding Month doesn't even exist. Adding insult to injury, Principal Klutz has challenged all Ella Mentry School students to write one thousand poems in exchange for a visit from "a real live poet." This is not the video game party incentive A.J. envisioned. He grudgingly accepts the challenge-but with a twist. A.J. pens additional poems and sells them to students. Bookworm Andrea is memorizing her new encyclopedia and while daily reciting her new knowledge to A.J., inadvertently provides him with the inspriation to create the winning poem. Jared Goldsmith provides narration and does a very good job with characterization, especially A.J. VERDICT Fans of the "My Weird School" series will enjoy this.-Cheryl Preisendorfer, Twinsburg City Schools, OH (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

My Weird School #16: Ms. Coco Is Loco! Chapter One Chillin' at the School Store My name is A.J. and I hate school. The only cool part of Ella Mentry School is the school store. It's a little room near the office where they sell stuff. Mostly they have pencils and pens and junk like that. They never have anything useful, like skateboards or video games. Still, it's cool to buy stuff when you're at school. The school store is open in the morning before the bell rings. The only problem is, I spent all my allowance over the weekend on a new football because some kid stole mine. So I didn't even have a dime to buy anything at the school store. Bummer in the summer! "Guess what I bought with my own money?" this girl with curly brown hair named Andrea Young whispered to her crybaby friend Emily. Knowing Andrea, it was probably an encyclopedia. "What did you buy?" asked Emily. "An encyclopedia!" Andrea said, all excited. "It's an encyclopedia for kids!" Ugh. Andrea loves reading and books and school and anything else that's boring. She keeps a dictionary on her desk so she can look up words and show everybody how much she knows. Andrea is like a human filing cabinet. "You know what I'm going to do with my encyclopedia?" Andrea asked Emily. Knowing Andrea, she would probably read the whole thing in ABC order so she would know everything in the world. "I'm going to read it in ABC order," Andrea bragged. "If I finish one letter every day, by the end of the month I'll know everything ! Won't that be cool?" Yeah, cool like an oven. I wish a set of encyclopedias would fall on Andrea's head. The bell rang and we all rushed to class. Our teacher, Miss Daisy, told us to put away our stuff and get ready for circle time. That's when we sit around in a circle, so it has the perfect name. Suddenly the voice of the school secretary, Mrs. Patty, came over the loudspeaker. "Miss Daisy, please send Andrea and A.J. to Ms. Coco's room." "Oooooh!" my friend Ryan said. "A.J. and Andrea are going to Ms. Coco's room again. They must be in love !" "When are you gonna get married?" asked my other friend Michael. If those guys weren't my best friends, I would hate them. My Weird School #16: Ms. Coco Is Loco! . Copyright © by Dan Gutman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from My Weird School #16 by Jim Paillot, Dan Gutman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.