Rating: 
Summary: Give it to an educator!
Review: Okay, this book is not for kids, it's for teachers, principals, school board members, and others involved in that dreaded springtime ritual we like to call "Standardized Testing" (or as Judy Finchler calls it, the "IPTU Test"). The humor is there, it's just aimed at adults. Kids young enough to enjoy picture book won't get the scarcasm about the stress teachers and administrators go through each year but adults will howl with laughter! As a teacher, I can honestly say NOTHING in this book is exaggerated...it's all true. The author must be or know a teacher, to understand how agonizing the standardized testing procedure is, and what a meaningless mystery it is to kids. Continuing in the same vein as Miss Malarkey Doesn't Live in Room 10, with a child's-eye-view of teachers, this one also has minimal text and outstanding illustrations. Forget the kids; give this book to a teacher-to-be, or put it in the teacher's lounge during testing week. It will be a sure hit and give them something to chuckle about before they go back to the classroom to say, "Make sure you bubble in the entire circle; make no other marks on the page, do not fold, spindle, or mutilate your answer sheet....."
Rating:
Summary: Testing, shmesting!
Review: Slapstick,over-the top humor, that can appeal to a wide age group! Also a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor for adults and older kids. Great satire! The outrageous illustrations and plot correspond well to the outrageousness of a week of testing that each year puts whole school districts throughout our country in a tailspin! Great picture book with nice balance: Illustrations make the characters likeable and endearing. They work
hand-in-hand with the text to gently, humorously chide adults for too much malarkey, Miss Malarkey, and for subjecting our students to I-P-T-U testing.
J. Finchler, are you coming up with a sequel? Maybe on what state legislators will do with the RESULTS of these tests? Please reserve a copy for me now!!
Rating:
Summary: Pokes fun at the commotion surrounding standardized testing
Review: The new school year brings standardized testing to Miss Malarkey's classroom as she, her students, and even the parents are preparing for The Instructional Performance Through Understanding Test. The school is in an uproar with the gym instructor teaching stress-reducing yoga instead of sports, parents giving pop quizzes on bedtime stories at night, the cafeteria serving "brain food" for lunch -- the kids are beginning to think that maybe the test is more important than they suspect! Aptly illustrated by Kevin O'Malley, Testing Miss Malarkey is an hilarious and original picturebook story by Judy Finchler that pokes fun at the commotion surrounding standardized testing, a fixed feature of today's school systems and of increasing importance for teachers and parents as well as for the kids!
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