Ms. LaGrange Is Strange! (My Weird School Series #8)

by Dan Gutman, Jim Paillot (Illustrator)

Overview

Ms. LaGrange talks funny and she's from some other country called France. She thinks the vomitorium is a fancy restaurant. Plus, she's writing secret messages in the mashed potatoes! Ms. LaGrange is the weirdest lunch lady in the history of the world!

In fact, all the grown-ups at A.J.'s school seem to have something wrong with them. What's going on here? Will lunchtime ever be the same?

Never before has school been this mixed up-or this much fun. Popular author Dan Gutman pulls out all the stops for this right-on second-grade hilarity.

Be sure to read all the zany stories in this series: Miss Daisy Is Crazy!; Mr. Klutz Is Nuts!; Mrs. Roopy Is Loopy!; Ms. Hannah Is Bananas!; Miss Small Is Off The Wall!; Mr. Hynde Is Out Of His Mind!; and Mrs. Cooney Is Loony!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060822231
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/06/2005
Series:	My Weird School Series , #8
Pages:	112
Sales rank:	19,948
Product dimensions:	5.16(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.27(d)
Lexile:	650L (what's this?)
Age Range:	6 - 10 Years

About the Author

Dan Gutman is the New York Times bestselling author of the Genius Files series; the Baseball Card Adventure series, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies around the world; and the My Weird School series, which has sold more than 12 million copies. Thanks to his many fans who voted in their classrooms, Dan has received nineteen state book awards and ninety-two state book award nominations. He lives in New York City with his wife, Nina. You can visit him online at www.dangutman.com.

Jim Paillot lives in Arizona (another weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. Isn't that weird?

Read an Excerpt

My Weird School #8: Ms. LaGrange Is Strange!

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By Dan Gutman

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2005 Dan Gutman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060822244

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Chapter One

A Pretty Normal Lunch

My name is A.J. and I hate school.

"Which do you hate more," my friend Ryan asked me, "school or vegetables?"

"Hmmm, that's a hard one," I said. "I really hate them both."

"I hate school more than vegetables," said our friend Michael, who never ties his shoes, "because we don't have to sit inside a vegetable all day and learn stuff."

"Good point," I agreed.

"I hate vegetables more than school," Ryan said, "because we don't have to eat the school."

That made perfect sense too. I couldn't make up my mind.

We were in the vomitorium. It was a pretty normal lunch at Ella Mentry School. Ryan stuck carrot sticks in his mouth and said, "Look, I'm a walrus!" Michael put a spoon on his nose, and it hung there. I dared Ryan to put pickle chips on his Tater Tots and eat them. Ryan will eat anything.

Michael dared me to shoot a straw wrapper at Andrea Young, this girl at the next table who is really annoying. The wrapper hit Andrea in the head. She screamed and knocked her apple juice on the floor.

Just at that moment, Andrea's annoying friend Emily was walking by with her tray. Emily slipped on the juice and fell on her butt. As she was falling, she knocked over a whole rack of lunch trays. Crash!

"Ouch!" Emily shouted. "I bumped my mouth. My tooth is loose!"

I don't know why, but when people fall on their butt, it's hilarious. Me and Ryan and Michael just about exploded trying not to laugh. Emily started crying. That big crybaby. She wasn't even hurt, and her tooth was probably loose before she fell.

Mrs. McGillicuddy, the lunch lady, came running out.

"What's going on?" she screamed. "Can't you kids behave?"

Mrs. McGillicuddy is the meanest lunch lady in the history of the world. She's always yelling at us to clean off our table, be quiet, and stop throwing food. She's no fun at all.

Mrs. McGillicuddy must not have seen the apple juice on the floor when she came running out. She slipped on it and fell on her butt too.

It's even funnier when grown-ups fall on their butts, especially mean grown-ups like Mrs. McGillicuddy. Everybody was cracking up.

"You kids are driving me crazy!" Mrs. McGillicuddy shouted. "That's the last straw! I quit!"

She was totally wrong. There were plenty of straws right there on the lunch counter. But Mrs. McGillicuddy must not have noticed. She yanked off her plastic apron, ripped off her plastic gloves, and pulled off her lunch lady hairnet. She threw all that stuff on the floor and stomped out of the vomitorium.

I'll tell you, there are a lot of crazy grown-ups at Ella Mentry School. But this was the first time I ever saw one of them actually go crazy, live and in person. It was cool.

Miss Lazar, our custodian, came over with a mop. I feel sorry for her. Every time some kid spills something, she has to clean it up.

"I love cleaning up messes!" Miss Lazar said, mopping the apple juice off the floor. Miss Lazar is bizarre!

When all the excitement was over, Ryan put a carrot stick in his nose and ate it (the carrot stick, not his nose). Michael made a sculpture out of tuna salad. I threw a cookie to Ryan, and he caught it in his mouth.

Like I said, it was a pretty normal lunch.

Continues...

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Excerpted from My Weird School #8: Ms. LaGrange Is Strange! by Dan Gutman Copyright © 2005 by Dan Gutman. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

1	A Pretty Normal Lunch	1
2	A Special Guest	9
3	The New Lunch Lady	22
4	Chicken Klutz	29
5	France Talk and Frogs' Legs	38
6	Welcome to Cafe LaGrange	45
7	Secret Agents	56
8	The Most Horrible, Terrible, Awful Thing in the History of the World	64
9	Give Peas a Chance	68
10	Andrea's Birthday Party	77
11	Silent Lunch	86

Editorial Reviews

When the lunch lady at Ella Mentry School gets tired of cleaning up after all the noisy, messy kids, she quits. Her replacement is Ms. LaGrange who wears an apron with the words "Make Lunch Not War" on it. Ms. LaGrange transforms the school's vomitorium into "Cafe LaGrange" and she writes secret messages in the mashed potatoes. A.J. and his friends attempt to find out Ms. LaGrange's secret but end up stuck in the school's giant freezer. The young narrator of this story is A.J. who hates girls, school and eating healthy foods. His narrative is filled with sarcasm and a jaded view of life. The teachers and principal are presented as completely stupid and inept. Of course, this might appeal to certain readers. A.J. and his friends call the cafeteria, the vomitorium. Lots of word play, puns, and jokes make this book a very silly read. But it will not appeal to the student who really does enjoy school. This book is part of HarperCollins' "My Weird School" series, which also includes Miss Daisy Is Crazy, Mr. Klutz Is Nuts, Mrs. Roopy Is Loopy, Ms. Hannah Is Bananas, Miss Small Is off the Wall, Mr. Hynde Is Out of His Mind and Mrs. Cooney Is Loony. 2005, HarperCollins, Ages 7 to 10.
—Sally J. K. Davies

Children's Literature