I Know an Old Teacher

by Anne Bowen, Stephen Gammell (Illustrator)

Overview

Meet Miss Bindley—an ordinary teacher with an unusual appetite. Miss Bindley doesn’t eat the usual fare like tuna melts and meatloaf. Instead, when her stomach grumbles, it’s the class pets she has her eye—er, stomach—on. Watch out! You never know who might be next.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467737876
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	20 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Stephen Gammell is the illustrator of numerous children's books, including the Caldecott Medal-winning Song and Dance Man and two Caldecott Honor books, The Relatives Came and Where the Buffaloes Begin. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 2-4

Miss Bindley takes the class pets home for a long weekend and develops an eerie, extraordinary craving. Following the traditional cumulative rhyme, all of them disappear in a round of Fear Factor -inspired eating-a flea, spider, fish, rat, Jake the Snake, and, as students cry in horror, "She's got our Lizzie!"-the class lizard. Miss Bindley, in turn, grows less appealing with the turn of each page. Hair becomes flyaway and frizzy, her cozy robe falls into a frumpy sack, and her face turns-well, a bilious green. Gammell's lively artwork is a colorful combination of watercolor, colored pencils, pastel, and crayon framed by a mix of font sizes and colors. Assisted by conversational responses from Miss Bindley's students, who are spying on her, the tale progresses as tails disappear until the unlikely becomes the outrageous-"I know an old teacher who swallowed a child...." Would she really try that? The horrifying notion is entertained, but to the relief of readers, is tossed aside in this unusual offering.-Mary Elam, Forman Elementary School, Plano, TX

School Library Journal

When faced with a long weekend, Miss Bindley decides to bring the class pets home with her, promising her students she'll take good care of them. But when a flea falls from her unkempt hair into her tea and she inadvertently swallows it, she has to get rid of it somehow. So she swallows the spider that crawls down her wall in the hopes that it will gobble the flea. The spying students cannot believe their eyes as the creatures their teacher swallows get larger and more beloved-they are the class pets, after all! When at last all the pets are gone, a student spies Miss Bindley staring at his friend. " 'Swallow a child?' / The old teacher smiled . . . / 'I would never do that!' " Gammell's gleefully messy illustrations give children an original view of teachers' private lives. His characters are full of personality, and textures seem to leap off the pages. This updated version matches the original in futility and repugnancy, but trumps it with a happier, deathless, ending. Class pets beware. (Picture book. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews