Miss Malarkey's Field Trip

Kindergarten-Grade 2–This hapless teacher and her class were first introduced in Testing Miss Malarkey (Walker, 2000). In this, the fifth book, they are off to the science center. There is very little in terms of story here, and less in the way of character development. Finchler and O'Malley follow the students as they bury one another in the fossil pit or abuse the displays while Miss Malarkey's headache steadily worsens and she becomes woozy during the 3-D movie. Parents fare no better here than in the other titles in this series, as one chaperone gets lost in the rain-forest room and another ignores the kids and yaks on her cell phone. O'Malley's vivid watercolor-and-pencil illustrations are nicely executed, but the humor of out-of-control, poorly supervised children wears thin quickly if it was ever funny in the first place.–Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
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