Thoughts before reading:
It's been a long time since we had a Mallory book. This is the one with the sexist teacher though, so I know it's going to piss me off. Not excited. I think this is the beginning of the story arc that ends up with Mal going to boarding school.
The basics:
It's a busy day at SMS for Mal: her class gets their mid-term progress reports, and she's teased by some of the kids for having straight A's. 6th grade fundraising week is also starting, and Mal's organizing the event with a committee because she's the class secretary. (Continuity!) The next round of short takes classes is also announced, and the subject is children's literature. Mal is ecstatic, since she wants to be a children's author when she grows up. Not only that, but it will be taught by Mr. Cobb, a cool, young teacher who's fairly new to the school.
Mal stocks up on new school supplies for her children's lit class, but is immediately disappointed when Mr. Cobb tells her she won't need them. There will be no tests or papers in the class, only discussion. (I HATED classes like this too.) Most of the class is thrilled to hear they won't have to write anything. The boys are especially having a good time, because Mr. Cobb coaches baseball, so he already knows a lot of them. Right away Mal starts to feel uneasy with the classroom dynamics, as she watches him joke around with the boys for most of the period. Despite all this, Mal is determined to do well, so that night she reads every Maurice Sendak book in her house and takes notes, as he's the first author they'll be studying. She heads to the next class extra prepared, and raises her hand almost the whole period, but is never called on once.
Mr. Cobb picks Mal to read a book to the class the following day, but her confidence is shaken from the feeling of being ignored, and she does a poor job, stumbling over her words. She's embarrassed, but vows to forge ahead and keep trying. In the next class, she tries to speak up again, but still isn't called on. When she tries to say something without raising her hand, Mr. Cobb asks her to speak up, and further embarrasses her by calling her the wrong name. When she corrects him, he asks why she didn't tell him sooner. Mal leaves the class feeling depressed about how she feels like a wimp whenever she's in it, and has lost her motivation to try.
Instead she throws her energy into fundraising week, starting with reading the minutes from old 6th grade meetings, looking for ideas for their class gift. She notices that 5 years ago, the class raised $1,000 for a student lounge in the library... but the weird thing is, SMS still doesn't have one. Mal tells the other 6th grade officers about it, and they agree to look into it together.
By the end of the week, Mallory's just trying not to be noticed in Mr. Cobb's class at all. He's started discussing the end-of-class project with them too: they have to think up something that furthers the cause of children's literature. Mal's idea is to organize students to read for younger kids at SES, but Mr. Cobb is clearly not impressed.
Sandra, one of the girls in Mal's children's lit class, tells her she doesn't like to disagree with the boys because boys don't like brainy girls. This really bothers Mal, and she starts doing a lot of thinking about why she's turned into such a wimp in class. She also wonders if boys seem more confident than girls because they have it easier. (Mal: yes. Welcome to modern feminism!)
It just so happens that Sandra is also one of the 6th grade officers, and she agrees to go to school early with Mal one day to sneak into the basement and look at old school records. They discover that the money was used the following year for roof repairs and repainting some classrooms. Mal tells the BSC, and is surprised by how seriously they take it. She then goes to the principal about it, with the other class officers, but he just tells them it was a rough year and they really needed that money to do repairs. However, it is agreed by everyone that if they can raise $1,000, the school will match the amount and finally build the lounge.
In spite of this victory, Mal is still avoiding speaking in Mr. Cobb's class. One day he keeps her after the bell and asks her how she's doing. She insists that everything is fine, because she doesn't want to look dumb. However, she does finally tell her BSC friends about what's been going on, and they all encourage her to speak up and keep trying.
Mal talks to another girl in her class, Lisa, about how Mr. Cobb calls on the boys way more than the girls, and gives the boys forever to answer, but cuts the girls off. This, combined with her fundraisers being a big hit, give her the confidence to ask Mr. Cobb for a conference. She also tells Sandra she shouldn't change herself just because of what others think.
At the conference, Mr. Cobb tells Mal he's been concerned about her lack of participation in class. She tells him her reasons are a lack of self-confidence, and that he never calls on girls, or gives them much time to answer. Mr. Cobb tells her that he doesn't think it's true that he favors the boys, and she has to take responsibility for herself, but he appreciates her coming in. Mal leaves feeling like he's mad at her.
There are some changes in class afterward, though. Mr. Cobb starts asking the boys to raise their hands, and he calls on kids more carefully. (He does keep shooting nervous glances at Mal though, haha.) Towards the end of the period, he apologizes to the class and says a student pointed out his favoritism to him. He's come to realize it's true, and he wants to do better.
For her final project, Mal makes a reading plan for grades 1-3. She gets a B+, which ruins her A average. She's bummed at first, but then realizes she worked really hard for it.
The fundraiser total is $1, 352, an all-time record.
Side plot: Buddy Barrett wants to be in the Memorial Day parade, but they only take groups, so he claims to be in a marching band. He then calls the BSC with his problem, and Kristy says they can use the members of All the Children of the World (the band they helped the kids form in #56).
Timeline:
It's the beginning of May.
Misc. thoughts:
*Ghostwritten by Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner.
*A children's literature class is an awesome idea, and I'd love to take one. But for 6th graders? Aren't they still reading children's literature in English class? They are only 11...
*This is the first time I remember the series referring to the Pike kids as stair-step kids (born one after another).
*This far into the series, and poor Margo's only personality trait is still that she barfs easily.
*I REALLY don't think so many kids would care about Mal having straight A's. I sometimes got teased for being a goody-goody or teacher's pet in junior high, but never about grades. No one really cared.
*The series has gotten a crazy amount of plot mileage out of these short takes classes. I think they just throw one in whenever they don't have another idea.
*The memory garden is done (from #93). A nice little bit of continuity.
*Another reason not to like Mr. Cobb: he says "exactomundo" all the time.
*Stacey calls Mr. Cobb a heartthrob. Sigh, this girl and her teacher fetish! It's really gross.
*I might have been wrong about this beginning Mal's trouble at SMS, because things were pretty resolved in here. The teacher did apologize and recognize that he did something wrong, and Mal made that happen. She also rocked the fundraiser, so by the end of this book she's in a pretty good place.
Books mentioned:
*Animalia, by Graeme Base
*Eleventh Hour, by Graeme Base
*Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown
*The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown
*Dinosaurs and How They Lived, by various
*Dinosaur Discovery, by Chris McGowan
*Dinosaurs A to Z (there's a lot of books called this, so I'm not sure exactly which one this book refers to)
*Dinosaur Bob, by William Joyce
*Dinotopia, by James Gurney
*Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss
*The Polar Express, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, and The Wreck of the Zephyr, by Chris van Allsburg
*Make Way For Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey
*Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White
*Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
My rating:
3 stars. I enjoyed this more than I expected to, and it was a different story than I was expecting also. If not for the terribly dull side plot, I would have given it a 3.5
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