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The Class from the Black Lagoon is written from a teacher's perspective about meeting her class on the first day of school. Having heard horror stories from the class' previous teachers, she imagines some of the horrors that she's heard about. I had some mixed feelings about this book. I think the illustrations were well done, very colorful and imaginative. The writing was okay, but not very engaging for me personally. However, with that being said, I could see how mid to late elementary school students could find this to be funny. It does kind of make the teacher seem more personable because she has her own fears and anxiety about the start of school. All in all, I think this book would be a good addition to any second to fifth grade classroom. ( )

Summary: This children's story is about a teacher, Mrs. Green, who is getting ready to start her first day of school. She has heard bad rumors about her students and lets her imagination go wild. She creates these horrible scenarios of how her first day of school is going to go and what her students are going to be like. She does not see normal children running around her classroom, but instead she pictures ghouls and monsters marching into the school. Soon all of her worries fade away, when she realizes that all of her assumptions were completely wrong and that her students are completely normal.

Argument: I believe this book is a great read for young children for many reasons. First, I believe that this book allows teachers to connect with their students on a personal level. Most students do not realize that their teachers may be just as nervous for the first day of school as they are and that they too may create unrealistic scenarios in their heads of what it will be like. In this book, the teacher imagines all the horrible things her students might do and how they might look, just like a young child would. For example, on page 5 it says "I heard that some have orange hair, some have green hair, some have purple hair, and some have no hair!". Even though these are the teacher's thoughts, students may think the same thing for their first day of school. Another reason why I believe this book is great to have in a classroom is because of its immense amount of imagination and creativity. The author of this book is able to turn normal behaviors of students into exaggerated monster-like scenarios. Not only would children find this funny but they can relate to it because their imaginations are just as wild and crazy. For example, on page 21 it says, "They do love to write. They write on their desks, they write on the walls, and they write on each other. The only thing they don't write on... is their papers".
I believe this book has a couple of themes. One is to not let your imagination get the best of you. Do not blow things out of proportion before they happen. Another theme is to not judge anyone or anything based on the rumors you hear. Mrs. Green took the rumors she heard and turned them into bad scenarios only to find out she had nothing to worry about after all and her assumptions were all wrong. ( )

Media: Water Color
Genre: Fantasy
Review: This book is a great example of fantasy because the characters and situation are not real but they are made to seem believable. As Mrs. Green is preparing for her new class to come in for the first day of school her mind starts to wander about all of the different stories and situations that she has heard about this class. She pictures her students as monsters who will act terribly in class. All of these suspicions go away once she finally meets her students. ( )

This book is about a teacher who has a nightmare about the first day of class. Her nightmare was that the students were horrible and turn into monsters. She was worrying about it all morning until the students showed up and they were very sweet. The author's webpage is http://www.mikethaler.com/. The website is a good website because students would find it interesting because of the illustrations there are all over the page. It would be a great learning resource, but they would also enjoy looking up the information because it is presented in a creative way.