class Quotes

The book is written in second person and the point of view brings you right in to the story. Even difficult classes sit quietly and with interest. The pictures and writing both draw students into the story. The tale of the babies is sweet and everyone feels good after listening to the story.

Why would she “want” to go to school, when ...her teacher is a warty toad? ...her friends are crooks and villains? ...the principal chops your head off if you talk in class? It can’t be true...or “can” it? Find out in this laugh-out-loud account of the horrors of going to school, told from the point of view of a girl with a huge imagination

“Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants—the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare from becoming a mere lower-class brawl.”

“The kids in Room 207 were misbehaving again. Spitballs stuck to the ceiling. Paper planes whizzed through the air. They were the worst-behaved class in the whole school.”

“Days went by and there was no sign of Miss Nelson. The kids missed Miss Nelson!”

“A woman in an ugly black dress stood before them. ‘I am your new teacher, Miss Viola Swamp.’ And she rapped the desk with her ruler. ‘Where is Miss Nelson?’ asked the kids. ‘Never mind that!’ snapped Miss Swamp. ‘Open those arithmetic books!’ Miss Nelson’s kids did as they were told.”

“They could see that Miss Swamp was a real witch. She meant business. Right away she put them to work. And she loaded them down with homework.”

“ ‘Now settle down,’ said Miss Nelson in a sweet voice. But the class would not settle down. They whispered and giggled. They squirmed and made faces.”

“The Welfare Dept. have asked my husband and me to foster a boy from a Jamaican family for a few months. As he is the same age as Keith, would it be possible for him to be with Keith in class? His name is Donovan Croft.”

“To signify class, good taste, the kind of breeding that cannot be bought.”

“No class of man is altogether bad, but each has its own faults and virtues; and these shipmates of mine were no exception to the rule. Rough they were, sure enough; and bad, I suppose; but they had many virtues. They were kind when it occurred to them, simple even beyond the simplicity of a country lad like me, and had some glimmerings of honesty.”

Mr Majika turns up to Class Three at the beginning of term and all is well at first. However this begins to change when Hamish Bigmore returns to his old tricks of generally being an unpleasant pupil, who refuse’s to listen to the teachers.

″ Pauline felt awful standing by herself being stared at by all the people on the stage, and all those she could not see in the stalls. She would have liked to have wriggled, and stood on one leg, but the Academy training had taught her not to stand just how she felt, so she stood as she did before a class, with her toes turned out, her heels together, and her hands clasped behind her back”