“I read Charlotte’s Web and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory every year, and every year when Charlie finds the golden ticket and Charlotte dies, I cry.” The first sentence of the book I have chosen and the opening preface pretty much tells the life of the author. “I fix staplers that won’t staple, zippers that won’t zip, and I poke pins in the orange caps of the glue bottles that will not pour.” It tells the story of almost every teacher in elementary school or that have taught kids.
32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny; Life Lessons from Teaching is a book for anyone who wants to read about a third grade class and have a good laugh. This book is very cute and mostly true from my experiences working at a daycare. I think Phillip Done wrote this book just to see how much elementary teachers go through and what kinds of things they deal with. It helps people that might want to be teachers realize how much they are going to be put through on a daily basis.
Done breaks each chapter down into its own little story. One story is about the different kinds of teachers. Done himself is a Piler. The other kinds are Shock, Chi, Natural, Hospital, and Model Home. Some teachers mix the types, like Natural and Shock, and Chi and Model Home. But some do not mix, like Pile and Hospital, and Chi and Shock.
Done also has friends that are not teachers. He tries to tell them the differences between their jobs. One of his friends went into business at the same time Done went into teaching. She flies to Monte Carlo for the weekend, drives a BMW, and gets flied to Berlin for work and stays in big fancy hotels. While if Done is sent somewhere for work, he has to bring his own lunch. Done has a hard time convincing his friend that he only gets a couple hundred dollars a year for supplies instead of a couple thousand, and most of what he buys is out of his own pocket.
Most of the stories are funny, like how Done and his two brothers won an eating contest while they were in elementary school, and ranking of the best show and tell stories (My little brother got drunk at my moms party last night, bag full of lady bugs released in the classroom, etc), and little letters Done wishes to send to parents (“Dear Mr. Blame, I am sorry for calling you and telling you about your son’s poor behavior at school. I thought you would want to know. I am sorry you think that it is my fault, and that I did something to provoke you darling little angel”).
