The new music teacher must try to teach A.J. and the rest of his class to play well enough during their recital to impress crabby Dr. Carbles.

John David Anderson, author of the acclaimed middle grade novels 'Sidekicked' and 'The Dungeoneers,' returns with a heart-shatteringly brilliant new novel: a realistic contemporary story of three boys and their relationships with a very special teacher. Everyone knows there are different kinds of teachers. The good ones. The not-so-good ones. The boring ones, the mean ones, the ones who try too hard. The ones who are kind of fun but also kind of annoying....

When a British student-teacher arrives, A. J. and his friends wonder if her all-black clothing and love of blood sausage mark her as a vampire, while Mr. Granite simply hopes her musician-boyfriend will stay away long enough for a math lesson.

A.J. and his friends get a Personal Digital Assistant named Miss Porter as a substitute teacher, who can order pizza and tell endless jokes, but grows power-hungry when her system is changed and tries to take over Ella Mentary School.

"A special guest has arrived at Ella Mentry School! Professor Pitt is the president of a local art museum and has all sorts of wacky ideas about art. A.J. thinks it's all a total snoozefest... until the piece he turns in for an art assignment gets praised as a work of genius! Suddenly, Professor Pitt is introducing A.J. as the next big thing to happen to the art world. What could possibly go wrong?"--

At first, Trisha loves school, but her difficulty learning to read makes her feel dumb, until, in the fifth grade, a new teacher helps her understand and overcome her problem.

Chronicles the everyday adventures of Mr. Wolf, a new teacher at Hazelwood Elementary school, and his class of wild and special students.

When Pete discovers that his teacher is sick and his mom is the substitute, he must teach her the ins and outs of his school.

A joke about killing the toughest teacher in school, the one who demands the most and gives the lowest grades, becomes a topic of serious discussion among the boys in the local hangout.

Cash, Fitch, and Bird Thomas are three siblings in seventh grade together in Park, Delaware. In 1986, as the country waits expectantly for the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, they each struggle with their own personal anxieties. Cash, who loves basketball but has a newly broken wrist, is in danger of failing seventh grade for the second time. Fitch spends every afternoon playing Major Havoc at the arcade on Main. And Bird, his twelve-year-old...