“If your teacher has to die, August isn’t a bad time of year for it.” An irresistible opening sentence draws readers into Russell Culver’s memories of his 15 ^th year in a small Indiana town in 1904. Because of the unexpected death of Miss Myrt Arbuckle, teacher at Hominy Ridge School, Russell’s older sister, Tansy, is hired to take her place—to Russell’s absolute astonishment and dread. Even more shocking is that Tansy turns out to be good, a revelation that unfolds for both Russell and readers over the course of this highly entertaining novel. Richard Peck’s colorful supporting cast is comprised of characters in every sense of the word, from the other students at the one-room school to assorted townsfolk and others. But he balances high humor with tender and surprising revelations throughout the story, including the observant, sensitive parenting of Russell’s father, who knows the value of both restraint and well-timed intervention. Peck’s lively, artful writing (“Two hundred straw hats bobbed in the sun, and not a bonnet among us....You could scarcely draw a breath, and not every farmer had stopped by the trough on the way here.”) superbly captures a sense of time and place in a story that may be particularly enjoyable for many older children and young teens as a read-aloud. (Ages 12–15)

If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it," begins Richard Peck's latest novel, a book full of his signature wit and sass. Russell Culver is fifteen in 1904, and he's raring to leave his tiny Indiana farm town for the endless sky of the Dakotas. To him, school has been nothing but a chain holding him back from his dreams. Maybe now that his teacher has passed on, they'll shut the school down entirely and leave him free to roam.

No such luck. Russell has a particularly eventful season of schooling ahead of him, led by a teacher he never could have predicted-perhaps the only teacher equipped to control the likes of him: his sister Tansy. Despite stolen supplies, a privy fire, and more than any classroom's share of snakes, Tansy will manage to keep that school alive and maybe, just maybe, set her brother on a new, wiser course.