A weird and whacky tale of the first term in the year five classroom. New school year, new teacher. Mr Murlin is the new grade five teacher for best friends, Scott and Johnny. From the very start Mr Murlin sets himself apart - failing to ask them to line up while walking, outlining a whacky bunch of rules including only putting the crocodiles in the box labelled crocodiles and not in their desks and then chucking out the entirety of their school textbooks because he writes his own classes. But not everyone loves someone who colours outside the lines.

I loved this book as a kid. My whole class did. But although the children audience will definitely get a lot out of it - it also has some gems of wisdom for the adults too - in particular reminding us there are many different ways of looking at things and that all sides of the story are needed to find the truth of an issue.

Scott and Johnny were terrific. Although they could be ridiculous they were both kind and caring and loyal. They stick up for their younger friend Wes when he's suspended, speaking to the principal to relate the whole story not just the one she'd heard. (He peed on his teacher but he meant to get his friend - which charming by the way). And they go to visit him and find his place is a disgusting mess and help him to clean it up and buy him food and make him a sandwich. And for all Ms Holland (the principal) hates their joke - it was actually hilarious - they cover her whole office in string, wrapping it over and around everything. The ending was abrupt but not detrimentally so. Overall this was a fantastic read - humorous, engaging and delightfully bizarre. 4 stars. ( )

staying alive in year 5 is a hillarious book about Scott and his friends surviving fifth grade when a surprisingly weird teacher come to replace their own teacher.

The thins Mr Murlin does are ase absurd as dumping the schools pricey textbooks to getting Scott's class to write a description of their desks.

Scott also found out that along with being a teacher who thinks that children must eat choclate in class he is also a REAL magician!!!

But things change te very next term....

Definetly worth reading!

Anne ( )