Just when you thought a snake-wearing zookeeper, who encourages elephants to paint and helps fish a kid out of a lion’s cage was a bit too wacky for comfort, along comes another installment of My Weirder School, which features a tech-loving teacher, who headlines an action-packed adventure that includes no less than 45 references to popular Beatles’ tunes.
Get ready for another Dan Gutman page turner.
Book 2 in the My Weirder School series is aptly titled: Mr. Harrison Is Embarrassin’! And if you are part of Gutman’s target audience (first through fourth graders) you will definitely agree that Ella Mentry School’s resident computer/phone/pencil sharpener fix-it nerd is anything but cool.
Or is he?
Looks can be deceiving. That’s just one of the many lessons young readers learn as they make their way through 112 pages of pure fun.
Like its predecessor, Miss Child Has Gone Wild!, Mr. Harrison is Embarrassin’! is told from the perspective of uber-dramatic third grader A.J., the book’s main character.
A.J. begins the story by revealing that he and his classmates have been invited to a very special event. His school’s namesake, Ella Mentry is celebrating her 90th birthday. Only the festivities don’t go off without a hitch.
“Ella Mentry was in the middle of blowing out the candles when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. I’m not going to tell you what it was. Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. All the lights went out!”
But that’s not all that goes awry on the big day.
Young readers will delight in living vicariously through A.J. and his pals as they experience school in the dark complete with food fights, a wild squirrel, and a host of misunderstandings.
More significant, though, is the surprising transformation of Mr. Harrison, or more accurately, the change in the students’ attitude toward their dweeby teacher.
A lot can happen when the lights go out.
Kids will love finding out exactly what when they read Mr. Harrison is Embarrassin’! The book is available on HarperCollins’ website and at discount retailers nationwide.
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