As long as children must endure the whims of tyrannical teachers, there will be an appreciative audience for a book such as this. Miss Breakbone suffers no fools; she refers to her class as "fiddling, twiddling, time-squandering...dunderheads!" Her militaristic form is capped by severe red hair and a menacing mouth; the latter is wide open and shrieking insults on the first page. Her alligator purse, warden-style key ring, and electric chair offer further inklings into her psyche. She makes Viola Swamp look like Glenda the Good Witch. When she confiscates Junkyard's latest find and makes him cry, the class reaches the tipping point. They devise elaborate plans to retrieve the treasure from the teacher's fortresslike home. The talents of the children in this diverse group are foreshadowed by their nicknames, e.g., Spider, Spitball, Google-Eyes, and Hollywood. Together, the Dunderheads are a formidable force, and Roberts's quirky watercolor and ink interpretations of Fleischman's deadpan humor and impeccable pacing produce hilarious results. The compositions are a pleasing mixture of busy scenes, with funny or important details rendered via judicious touches of color, gray washes, and black line work and ample white space. The spreads are sometimes defined by "panels," whose straight and curved lines form unexpected shapes and add another element of excitement to the dynamic diagonals and extreme perspectives. This book will raise an adult eyebrow or two, but young readers will relish each solution in this satisfying celebration of multiple intelligences, teamwork, and kid power.-Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library

A celebration of multiple intelligences, teamwork, and kid power.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

The setup is witty and subversive, and the book then springs into a classic caper plot, with each kid in the gang offering a bizarre skill.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

Roberts caricatures the formidable teacher and the amiably wide-eyed kids with a witty, agile pen and judicious splashes of color, an excellent foil for Fleishman’s terse and comical private eye send-up. With action galore, a villain foiled by clever kids, a laugh a minute, a profusion of illustrations with broad age appeal, and an easily read text, this is a winner.
—The Horn Book

You can almost hear the Pink Panther theam thrumming in the background... A fun stick-it-to-teacher romp with no redeeming message but cleverness in spades.
—Booklist

Deliciously outlandish, featuring an undercover caper complete with a hidden safe, grappling hooks made of paperclips, a classmate who just happens to be a hypnotist and a broken statuette with (real) emerald eyes.
—Kirkus Reviews

Self-affirming. As a whole, the class is a bunch of ‘twiddling, time-squandering, mind-wandering, doodling, dozing, don’t knowing dunderheads.’ Taken singly and placed to their best advantage the students are, of course, geniuses. The illustrations by David Roberts are hilarious scary and fabulously imagined.
—ForeWord

Young gumshoes and budding secret agents will love the laughs and suspense… distinct personalities and unique talents of each student all but guarantee that this memorable pack will amuse both children and adults.
—Shelftalker blog

You’ll be hoping to see more of this strange but appealing crew.
—Cookie magazine

Completely entertaining and perfectly packaged.
—Books4YourKids.com

Rollicking, funny and clever.
—Journal Inquirer

A wildly funny story with equally hilarious illustrations.
—Kendal A. Rautzhan

Told with wacky humor and madcap illustrations, and will appeal most to young independent readers who can savor on their own the children’s triumph over their wicked teacher.
—Times-Picayune

The tone of this story is reminiscent of a hard-boiled detective novel, a wonderful stylistic quality….Miss Breakbone is a delicious villain, one that could have easily stepped out of a Road Dahl book.
—Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog (SLJ)