Oh Lawdy, I sure hope my homeschooling room does not get into the shape of Mrs. McBloom’s classroom after a few years!! Reading this book will make you feel much better about your cluttered home and your child’s messy room as nothing can compare to Mrs. McBloom’s room! My daughter had a good time looking through all of the cluttered illustrations picking out something different every time she looked! She also had a great time of coming up with an idea to help Mrs. McBloom clean out her room: dynamite?
Mrs. McBloom had been teaching for 50 years at Knickerbocker Elementary in the city of Up Yonder. Her classroom was stuffed full of items from every year of her teaching. Students, janitors, and even the principal begged her to clean up the room. She told them that it was on her list of things to do, right above take a fancy shmancy cruise. The pictures of her classroom have a chicken laying eggs, a beehive, an apple tree that is overgrown, birds flying through the air, butterflies landing on the students, an active volcano (a small one), a burning candle, a squirrel, ants, a mouse, baby birds in a nest, science experiments, even a picture of a woman rolling her eyes at the mess! Books were stacked everywhere and piles of paper littered the schoolroom. Mrs. McBloom has a tall beehive hairdo with a measuring tape, scissors, and her to do list sticking out of it.
Mrs. McBloom was retiring and a new teacher coming in to teach her room. The new teacher asked nicely for the room to be cleaned. Mrs. McBloom wondered how in the world she could clean out the room before leaving…then came up with a plan. She wrote a homework assignment on the board for the children to come up with ideas on cleaning out the room fast. One child suggested his invention: a machine that sucked everything up. Other suggestions were goats to eat it all, a magician to poof it away, but Georgia Peachpit had the best idea of all. She had made a poster saying for all of Up Yonder to come out and take one item each out of the room; free apples and eggs would be given away on the day of the event.
The next picture shows a line clear out of sight of people lined up one by one to come into the room and pick up one item each. Of course, Mrs. McBloom had taught all of the older folks so they were able to give her a hug goodbye before she retired. Many interesting things were found in the room: rare archeological finds, old cupcakes, a potbellied stove, and even baby kittens! Someone found their library book that had been due for years. They all decided to have a big sale and send Mrs. McBloom on her fancy shmancy cruise. The picture of the sale has a poster “Keep out area 51” and a moon rock along with other things not so desirable, such as a frog and some seashells. So Mrs. McBloom was sent off on her cruise and the new teacher started at the school…only the picture shows the room already getting dirty. Potting soil is spilling on the desk onto the floor and a little animal is marking on the walls!
This is such a fun book with many, many detailed illustrations. The first time we see Mrs. McBloom she is riding a bicycle with her basket piled high with a fish tank, books, an apple pie, a very large insect in a glass case, an apple, and her lunch. We even get to see the progression of the room through the years she is teaching: from very clean and tidy to the state it was in before everyone helped clean it out for her retirement. Colorful illustrations include ones with text on them like posters and the blackboard, as well as the to do list. With 31-pages to the story, I do not feel that the ages recommended should be as low as 5-years-old. At least 6 or 7-years-old as younger children may not have the attention span needed yet. So 6-10 years old I feel would enjoy this book.
More by this contributer:
Eight Steps to Spring Clean and Organize Your Child’s Cluttered Bedroom