Pearl and Wagner

Pearl gets a glimpse of next year's teacher, Ms. Bean, and thinks she resembles a "mean green bean." Illustrations vary in placement and capture the myriad expressions on the characters' faces. The language begins to bridge that territory between easy readers and chapter books, but the real beauty of this book is its own connection from one school year to the next.

"No more homework, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks" may be chanted on every elementary school playground as school ends, but its jubilation often masks some insecurity. What will next year be like? Who will be in my class? Will I like my new teacher? In this latest entry in the Pearl and Wagner series, McMullan perfectly captures that uncertainty when Pearl gets a glimpse of her future teacher, Ms. Bean. "She looks like a bean," she tells Wagner. "A mean green bean." How bad can it be? Pearl figures they're in for hard spelling tests (with words like stupendous and astonishing); counting backward from one hundred -- by sevens; and even a missed lunch period or two. Alley nicely (and appropriately) varies the placement of illustrations, with some foreshadowing the action and others replicating it, all the while capturing the myriad expressions on all the characters' faces. The language (natural rather than phonetically regular vocabulary, and with varied sentence structure) begins to bridge that territory between easy readers and chapter books, but the real beauty of this book is its own connection from one school year to the next. betty carter