Richard Peck has been writing young adult novels for more than 30 years, but in the last decade themes, styles, and genres from his previous work have come winging together to produce a series of comic historical stories that have earned him two nods from the Newbery committee and a whole new generation of fans. This latest effort has all the elements we've come to expect: wicked wit conveyed in crackling, razor-sharp prose (he is surely the greatest sentence craftsman writing for children today); a setting in a time and place unfamiliar to most readers; a depth, complexity, and compassion rare in comic novels; wise elders (though in this case one of them isn't yet out of her teens); vivid characters who are determined (and often cranky) individualists; and subtle underlying messages that make his books terrific for discussion groups.

Almost uniquely among comic novelists for children, Peck appeals to the head and the heart, as well as the funnybone, all without pandering to his readers' baser instincts. Almost anyone can get kids to laugh and squeal with gross-out and potty humor, off-color language, and the implication that all adults are idiots. In this story, as in Peck's others, he makes his readers laugh out loud while watching children solve their own problems, but he does it in exquisite prose, filled with fascinating period detail, and without the usual writer's tricks of getting rid of the adults or making them useless. Now there's a writer's trick more of our authors need to learn.

From the Book:
You couldn't deny Miss Myrt Arbuckle was past her prime. She was hard of hearing in one ear, no doubt deafened by her own screaming. And she couldn't whup us like she wanted to. She was a southpaw for whupping, and she had arthritis in that elbow, so while she could still whup, it didn't make much of an impression.

Back in the spring when she called up Lester Kriegbaum for some infraction, nothing serious, he brought a book to the front of the room and read it over her knee while she larruped away at his far end.

So when you get right down to it, if you can't hear and you can't whup, you're better off dead than teaching. That's how I looked at it.