class Quotes

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

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

“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”

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

“I am instructed to communicate to him,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his finger at me sideways, “that he will come into a handsome property. Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,—in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations.”

“Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here—as you are to be a gentleman—the better.”

“I mustn’t see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the streets; there mustn’t be no mud on his boots. My gentleman must have horses, Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses for his servant to ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have their horses (and blood ‘uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no. We’ll show ‘em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won’t us?”