SCHOOL FEVER
by Brod Bagert & illustrated by Robert Neubecker
A tiresome collection of forced verse follows one young scholar from a reluctant beginning through a school year full of the usual hijinks and out on the other side to summer and the entirely unconvincing assertion that “I’m a kid who loves to know!” The verse adheres to the same-old-stuff meter and rhyme schemes that typify children’s poetry, enlivened only slightly by Neubecker’s characteristically energetic illustrations. The occasional insight—“When I make my teacher angry, / Her attention’s all on me”—is buried under a heap of school-related clichés: bad cafeteria food, the wonder of books, the injustice of punishment, too much homework, etc. Ho hum. (Picture book. 5-7)