This
isn’t the last Mallory book, but it is the last one I’ve never read.
Mallory’s
latest Short Takes class is Children’s Literature, which should be a breeze for
her. Instead, the class is torturous because the teacher lets the boys dominate
the class by shouting out answers, something Mal isn’t comfortable with. Despite
not being comfortable speaking out in class, Mal has no problem speaking up to
the principal after discovering that money had been set aside for a student
lounge was used for building repairs instead. She leads the class to raise
enough money to get their lounge, despite the fact that several of her
classmates discovering the idea of playing dumb to get boys. She eventually
talks to her teacher, who realizes he’s not being fair and starts giving the
girls willing to talk equal time.
In the
sitting-related subplot, Buddy Barrett claims to be in a marching band so that
he can march in a parade. Rather than make him tell the truth and face the
consequences, the BSC scramble to amass a band full of random kids with
ridiculous homemade instruments that don’t make noises.
Interesting
Tidbits
The
cover: By this point, the kids—at least, just the sixth graders—have started to
look age-appropriate. Also, you kind of get why the teacher is calling on the
boys instead of the girls in this set up. Mal is the only girl who is raising
her hand, and she looks really reluctant. The boys seem more enthusiastic.
You
would think that straight As were really unusual in a middle school, given the
way everyone keeps acting at SMS. Mal has straight As on her midterm report—not
even a regular report card—and she gets called brainiac and know it all. I had
straight As every quarter in middle school…and so did seven other people in my
class. And it was a really small school. Anyway, I know for a fact that Kristy
had straight As the last quarter of seventh grade, as reported in #6.
I like
this: Mal says that Abby talks loud and fast, but Abby blames this on being
from Long Island. (As opposed to my gut instinct, which is just that Abby is
loud and talks fast simply because she’s Abby.)
Real books:
Charlotte’s Web, Where the Wild Things Are, Polar
Express, The Mysteries of Harris
Burdick, The Wreck of the Zephyr,
Make Way for the Ducklings, Dinosaurs and How they Lived, Dinosaur Discovery, Dinosaurs A to Z, Dinosaur
Bob, Dinotopia, Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, Animalia,
Eleventh Hour,
Elise,
Jessi’s synchronized swimming partner, is in Mal’s literature class. I don’t
know why I thought she was in seventh grade. The Complete Guide says she’s in
sixth grade, though. I think it’s because Jessi had to switch around lunch
periods or something to take ‘synchro.’
I had
an experience similar to Mallory’s first day of lit class, with a substitute
teacher. Class policy said if you wanted help, you raised your hand and the
teacher would come to you. So I sat at my desk with my hand raised for fifteen
minutes while the sub ignored me and the other kids all got out of their seats
and went to the teacher’s desk. Finally I went over to the teacher’s desk,
where I got chewed out for not getting my assignment done, because I was sitting at my desk with my hand raised. Why am I
bringing this up? Because it took me fifteen minutes to get into the sub’s
groove of how she wanted the class run. Mal’s sitting at her desk with her hand
raised, but not getting called on. The back cover says that the teacher is
favoring boys, but at one point in the class, a boy and a girl get into a
discussion. It’s clear reading the chapter that the teacher isn’t calling on
raised hands; he just wants the kids to shout out their opinions. Let’s see how
long it takes before Mal figures that out.* Oh, and as the book goes on, he
does lean more toward favoring the boys.
*(I get
it; she’s also not really comfortable just shouting out her opinions. But there
are going to be times in her life where that’s necessary, so maybe it’s time to
start acquiring that skill now.)
Claudia
spelling time! It’s only one sentence: I
dont know, Stacey, waht do you git? This would be a lot less funny if
Stacey hadn’t started the notebook entry by asking What do you get… and therefore, modeling the spelling of most of
those words for Claudia…
Ooh, I
like this, too! The sixth grade class officers have their meeting in the memory
garden from book #93. Glad to hear that place is getting some use.
Sandra,
the class vice president, figures out that some years back, the funds raised during
Sixth Grade Fundraiser Week were earmarked for a student lounge but were used
for repairs instead. Sandra says that it’s misappropriation of funds, but I
guess it depends upon circumstances. If I were eleven, I’d completely agree
with her, but as an adult, I think that roof repairs are way more important.
Mallory
is late two BSC meetings in a row. When she’s on time the next meeting, Kristy
points it out as first order of business. I think I liked it better when she
would just yell at them for being late.
Mallory
figures out how to save the ridiculous ‘marching band’ by giving the kids
kazoos to play. The title quote is Stacey’s response. (It ends up being
ridiculous…twenty kazoos playing twenty different tunes at the same time. Abby
calls it an attack of the killer bees.)
Remember
when puff paint was cool? That was more like 1989 than 1997.
The
whole Sandra plotline is interesting because it’s the most realistic in this
book. Sandra is eleven or twelve at this point and she’s really aware of what
the boys think of her…as most girls her age are. She purposely tries not to
appear too smart or strong so that boys will like her better. She wears shoes
that hurt her feet so that she’ll seem more feminine. (I’m picturing Quinn from
Daria, who did the same thing for a while but stopped because she didn’t need
to wear shoes to make her legs look hot, because her legs look hot no matter
what she’s wearing…)
This is
ridiculous. The marching band story line is stupid (why, oh why, do the BSC
members not just tell Buddy he’s out of luck when he tells them he wants to
make a marching band), but the actual parade takes the cake. On practice day,
the BSC handed out twenty kazoos to whomever showed up. They never sent out a
date everyone had to sign up by or spoke to any parents. Kristy agreed to
babysit for a ridiculous 9 children by herself in the time period leading up to
the parade. But then, proving that Stoneybrook parents are the worst in the
world, various parents start dropping their kids off, assuming the BSC will
watch them. In a couple of cases, parents literally pull up in a car, drop off
their four year old, and don’t even speak to Kristy (who is left alone with a
whopping twenty-three children)
before driving off. Horrid, horrid parenting.
I’d
expected this book to suck, but it really didn’t. (Well, except the marching
band part.) Mal had said, early on, that her parents were proud of all of her
siblings, no matter their grades, as long as they did their best. Mal found the
courage to speak up to her teacher and point out his unconscious bias to him.
He denies calling on boys more than girls or letting boys have more time to
think on a topic, but later that day, he realizes it’s true. He apologizes to
the class and makes a concerted effort to be more fair. But then Mal realizes
that wasn’t the only reason she wasn’t speaking up in class. She proves she
knows her stuff in the final written project for the class, and the teacher
gives her a B+. Even though it’s her first ever B, Mal’s not disappointed,
because she realizes it’s the grade she deserved (and in my opinion, probably
nicer than she deserved) and she tried her hardest.
Outfits
Mr.
Cobb: collarless white shirt, jeans and a black vest; tan chinos, leather boat
shoes, blue linen shirt
Stacey:
jeans with rolled cuffs, denim work shirt, backwards painter’s cap
Claudia:
shorts, tie-dyed t-shirt with matching scrunchie, red high tops
Helen
Gallway (who?): hot pink bike shorts, t-shirt with puff-painted hearts on it
Next:
#109
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