My Teacher is an Alien

Bruce Coville's My Teacher is an Alien is a funny, shivery school story for 8 year olds about a girl who finds out exactly why her new teacher is so strange.

What happens

Susan Simmons comes back after the spring holiday to find her favourite teacher gone. Ms Schwartz, who read real books aloud and always put on a class play, has left without saying goodbye. In her place is Mr Smith. He's tall, handsome and very strict. He doesn't believe in plays, reading aloud or music of any kind.

Then Susan writes a rude note about him (with an unkind drawing) and he scoops it up with her maths test. Desperate to get it back, she follows him home.

What she sees through a bedroom door is brilliant. Mr Smith sits at a mirror, takes hold of his ears and peels off his face. Underneath he's lime green with huge orange eyes. And he's reporting to a spaceship about which children he'll take back for study.

So who do you tell? Susan knows exactly how that conversation with her parents would go. The only person who might believe her is Peter Thompson, the clever, bullied boy who always has a science fiction book hidden behind his schoolbook.

Susan tells the whole story herself, and she's great company. She's cross, brave, funny and properly scared, sometimes all in one go. She pesters Peter, doubts him and finally teams up with him, and it's really sweet. He's lonely, and she realises (with a bit of a shock) that she's probably the closest thing he has to a friend.

The scary parts are the fun kind. There's creeping up the stairs of an empty house, a night-time break-in while the grown-ups are at a school meeting, and something in the attic that will have your reader gasping. There's a playground bully too, and he's no joke (he once gave Susan a black eye).

It's set in an American school, so there's sixth grade and a PTA, but none of that gets in the way.

What to read next

Want more of that funny, shivery mix? Bruce Coville's Goblins in the Castle has William, who has the run of an enormous castle full of secret passages, except for the one tower he's never been allowed into.