Dear Teacher

From Dear Teacher:

Dear Michael,
We are looking forward to welcoming you back to school for the start of the new year. I hope you have had a really fun break and are ready to dive into lots of learning!

This year your class will be working especially hard in math, history, geography, and English. I am sure that if you study carefully, you will find those spelling tests can be a fun challenge!

Your new teacher is called Miss Brooks. She has all sorts of exciting plans for the new year. We look forward to seeing you on Monday.

Yours sincerely,
Mr. N. T. Grindstone
Principal

Dear Teacher,
I might be a bit late for the first day of school. The weirdest thing happened today. The head of the secret service turned up! They need me for a special secret mission to find a missing explorer. I did mention the math test, but he just said that the future of the country depends on me. I couldn't say no. Sorry Miss Brooks.

From,
Michael

“When Michael gets a letter from the principal telling him about his new teacher, he decides he is not going back to school in the autumn. He sends a series of creative letters to his teacher saying why he won’t be in class when school starts. He imagines many adventures from skiing down Mt. Everest, riding a motorcycle around the pyramids in Egypt, taking a raft down the Amazon River where he finds hidden treasure, being attacked by pirates, chasing pirates on the Orient Express. His faithful dog goes on all these adventures with him. By the end of the book Michael does go to school and is having a great time on a field trip to the zoo. The boldly colored artwork is not sophisticated, and the reader could believe that a child did them. Boy readers will like the book as well reluctant readers. It is fun and colorful, imaginative and thought provoking. It would be a fun read-along with a discussion on Predicting what comes next. Recommended.” - Library Media Connection

Today, as I’m sure you know, was the first day of school! Not only for CPS students, but for yellow busloads of kids all around Chicago. Whether your kid woke up at the crack of dawn to sharpen her pencils or had to be shaken from bed and dragged to the door like an extra from Night of the Living Dead, we’ve found something that will make first day of schoolers smile when they get home—Amy Husband’s wisecracking new kids’ book, Dear Teacher.

The book is a series of adorably illustrated letters (sometimes half-eaten by crocodiles) from a very concerned student, Michael, to his new teacher, Miss Brooks. Only Michael isn’t concerned with whether he has all the school supplies he needs or if he’ll make friends in his new classroom. Or even if he’ll pass math. He’s concerned—or not so very, actually–with all the reasons he’s going to be (at first) late, then miss the whole first day, then miss the whole year, of school. Whether it’s because the Secret Service turned up and asked for Michael’s help in a search for a missing explorer—he did try to explain he couldn’t miss his math test, but they responded that the “future of the country depends” on him—or because the pirate king stole his treasure and “I’m really sorry, Miss Brooks, but I just can’t let the Pirate King get away with this,” Michael’s antics are chucklers, vividly detailed, and come with plenty of “p.s.” and “p.p.s.” messages that are almost funnier than the main text itself (like how when he is away on the moon to please make sure Nicholas, his classroom arch nemesis, doesn’t use his markers—but how it’s okay if he takes Michael’s turn in cleaning the cubby).

It just may be our favorite back-to-school read yet. We have a hunch it will make reading about school almost as much fun as going to it. Almost.


“Each vertical, double-page spread in this inventive title is a letter from young Michael to his new teacher explaining why he may be late for the first day back at school: the Secret Service is sending him with his dog on a mission, in which he must rescue an explorer stuck on Mount Everest, race on a motorcycle to the pyramids, walk the plank for pirates, and much more until, finally, NASA decides to send him to the moon. The wild, colorful illustrations show the imaginative play, and kids with back-to-school panic will find comic relief in these over-the-top scenes.”



In this vertically oriented book, Michael and his dog, Bruno, travel from Egypt to the moon, down the Amazon and up Mount Everest, all while sending letters to Michael’s new teacher, Miss Brooks, to explain his anticipated lateness on the first day of school (“NASA wants me to go on a space mission.... I told them about the math tests, but they said that the future of the planet has to come first”). But when Michael receives a reply reminding him what he’ll miss, he may just decide to give school a try. Husband’s bright, doodle-like illustrations and dynamic letters will help readers realize real-life escapades can be as fun as imaginary ones.

Format: Paperback

Dimensions
Length: 9.8125 in
Width: 9.8125 in
Weight: 6.00 oz
Page Count: 24 pages