My Weird School 1 – Miss Daisy Is Crazy!

Dan Gutman's Miss Daisy Is Crazy is a very silly school story for 8 year olds about a boy who hates school and a teacher who says she hates it too.

What happens

It's the very first My Weird School book. A.J. is eight and starting second grade (that's about Year 3 in a British school). On day one he stands up and tells the whole class he hates school. His new teacher, Miss Daisy, agrees with him. She'd rather be at home on the sofa eating bonbons.

Then things get odder. Miss Daisy can't work out four times four. She doesn't know how to spell "read". So the class end up crowding round a desk full of crayons and pencils, explaining sums to their own teacher. (Who's teaching who here?)

A.J. and his friends decide she must be an impostor. Possibly a bank robber. Maybe she's got the real teacher tied to some railway tracks! But they agree to keep quiet, because a teacher who knows nothing means they won't have to learn anything either. Perfect.

Then Ryan has what A.J. calls the most genius idea ever. They'll buy the school and turn it into a video-game arcade. Between them they've got one dollar and thirty-two cents. Principal Klutz has a counter-offer, and it involves a LOT of reading and a gorilla suit.

A.J. tells the whole thing straight to you, and that's what makes it so funny. "Everybody laughed, even though I didn't say anything funny" comes round again and again. So do the dodgy facts from his friend Billy around the corner, who swears the principal keeps a dungeon in the basement.

Grown-ups will see what Miss Daisy is up to from the start. Your reader might take a little longer, which is half the fun.

A.J. says he hates Andrea Young, the class know-it-all, quite a lot, and there's plenty of "dumb" in there. It's all very cartoonish.

The chapters are short and the jokes come fast, so it's a great one for a reader who wants a quick win and a proper laugh.

What to read next

If they love it, the same class are back for Mr. Klutz Is Nuts, where the principal skateboards to school and crash-lands in a bush.