176 pages
Age level: 9 to 13 years
Grade level: 4th to 8th grade
Adam France is a quiet seventh grader at troubled Preston Underwood Junior High School, also known as "P.U. Junior High" - where it stinks to be a student. Adam is desperate to ditch his sixth period remedial reading class and the crazy kids in it. He just needs to pass the annual state reading test - a test he has failed every year since kindergarten.
Adam's sixth period classmates include the school's most disruptive students - Freddie Acosta, Taniqua Jones, and Fozzy Rosa to name a few. Between their spitballs and food fights, flying desks and a hot pink halter top incident, the daily antics and mind-numbing reading drills of sixth period would be impossible to survive without Mrs. B, Preston Underwood's sassy but soft-hearted new reading teacher.
Unlike many of his peers, Adam lives with both of his parents in the house his mother grew up in. Saddened by the deterioration of her childhood neighborhood, Angela France has been working non-stop to build a better life for the family. But her efforts seem to be making things at home worse instead of better. Her determination drives Adam, though, and Mrs. B's perceptivity finally avails him of an opportunity to prove he is capable of more than any test has ever shown.
With well over 60% of fourth and eighth graders in the U.S. scoring below proficient in reading, the struggles faced by Adam and the students of P.U. Junior High will be all too familiar to most middle grades students. These students (and their teachers and parents alike) will both laugh and cry as they turn the pages to travel with Adam through one year in one classroom at P.U. Junior High.
About the Author: Theresa Gindlesperger was born in New York and has been a librarian, literacy coach, and a teacher in both traditional and online classrooms. She lives in Florida with her husband, Ron (also a teacher), their daughter, Elle, and two rescue cats, Pan and Grace.
