Shelly's Book Blog

I read an interesting article in School Library Journal recently about Dan Gutman. He talked about how an adult had written him a letter complaining about one of his My Weird School books. The letter writer didn't like that Gutman's main character said he hated school. Gutman actually reprinted the whole letter so readers would know exactly what the complaints were. I decided to read Miss Daisy is Crazy!, which is the first book in the series, to see for myself. I certainly agree with Gutman that it seems silly to make such a fuss about these lighthearted books.

Miss Daisy is a second grade teacher, and she pretends that she doesn't know how to read, write, or do math. The narrator, A.J., gets totally taken in by Miss Daisy's act, but he decides he doesn't want to tell the principal how "dumb" his teacher is because then she would be replaced by someone who would make them work harder. A.J. and the other kids actually seem to learn a lot from Miss Daisy, and it seems clear that the learning process is actually pretty fun. I enjoyed this clever and funny book very much!