Our narrator, a wise-cracking nine year old named Stella, starts off this short novel by telling us how awful her current fourth grade teacher is compared to her last year's teacher. Rashoon (Stella refuses to call her "Mrs.") is a scowling, unpleasant person who all the kids hate while Mrs. Mazursky jokes with her students and volunteers to stay after school for tutoring or just to talk.
Stella has other problems besides Rashoon. Her two best friends, popular Debbie and dorky Rachel, can't stand each other. (This is resolved rather predictably with Stella realizing that Rachel is her true friend, not Debbie.) Her mother can't seem to control her impulse spending and her absent-minded father seems barely there most of the time. The family problems are treated with a light-heartedness that shouldn't scare away young readers. This author is great at portraying kids as they really are, but the parents could've stood to be a little more adult.
One day, Rashoon goes one too far when she makes Stella stand in the hallway until she apologizes for disrupting the class. There is a blue table at the back of the classroom, and Rashoon has a habit of telling troublemakers that if they don't want to work, they can go sit at that table so as not to disturb the rest of the class. This time Stella called her bluff and went to the table. This kind of situation sounds so believable. The teacher is wrong, but yet not in a way that is abusive or unrealistic, and you really feel frustrated for Stella as she is forced to come back in and apologize so she can have lunch.
Soon after, Mrs. Mazursky is invited over for dinner at Stella's house. You can see how much Stella idolizes this teacher as she rushes to clean her room and put on a pretty dress. She's so nervous that she ends up making a mess of things. More problems arise when it is announced that the third and fourth graders will be having a baseball tournament. Again, all Stella can think about is impressing Mrs. Mazursky, even though she won't be on her team. She even has her older brother coach her with her catching, which she isn't very good at.
The day of the tournament arrives, and of course, it all comes down to a game between Mrs. Mazursky's class and Mrs. Rashoon's. Mrs. Mazursky, it seems, is either a sports fanatic or fiercely competitive. The change in her behavior is rather abrupt and I'm not sure why she is getting away with this, but just go with it. She takes out a bull horn and yells insults at the children on the other team. Even Stella disapproves of this behavior. Remember how Stella practiced her catching? You guessed it, it's up to Stella to either catch the ball or lose the game for her team. Right when Stella is about to catch the ball, Mrs. Mazursky pulls out her bull horn and yells for her to drop the ball...which she does.
Stella is heartbroken, of course, and her parents actually snap out of their own worlds enough to comfort her. I have to wonder if the reason Mrs. Mazursky meant so much to Stella is that she didn't have enough parental support at home, but I doubt that's where the author was going with it. At school, Mrs. Mazursky tries to apologize, but Stella is still too hurt to talk to her. Stella makes a list of ways to be perfect, and realizes that it's impossible, even for someone so nearly perfect like Mrs. Mazursky.
No comments:
Post a Comment