Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots

After some kids bully their first teacher into quitting, the find themselves up against a more formidable opponent. The book even gives a little tip of the hat to Viola Swamp from Miss Nelson Is Missing.

It was hard to like the kids since so many played along with the main bully, and the ending is abrupt and doesn't resolve any of the questions raised about the teacher.

When the students of the third grade at Bailey Elementary drive off their teacher, a new one arrives as replacement. The children are confident that their irritating tactics will work just as well on Mrs. Jeepers, the teacher from Transylvania. How wrong they are. With her mysterious green brooch, flashing green eyes, and secret history, the teacher is more than a match for the rebellious children. Soon, they are following orders and staying quiet. They do their homework, they clean the room, and obey instructions. When rumors that she is a vampire circulate, the children are only more determined to keep Mrs. Jeepers happy. Eddie, the worst of the worst, is disgusted. He isn't afraid of the new teacher. He and Melody decided to sneak show more into her house late one night, Eddie to prove that she is a normal teacher, and Melody to keep an eye on him. They don't find the proof Eddie wants; in fact, all they find is a box shaped like a coffin that is locked from the inside. They scoot out of there, but Eddie isn't ready to give up that easily. He tries one last time to prove who is the boss of their classroom using his most outrageous stunts. When Mrs. Jeepers finally says enough and escorts Eddie outside, what will become of the red-headed trouble maker?

This is the first book in the Bailey School series. It introduces the main characters and establishes the setting and the theme of the story. Every book features an adult who may be a supernatural creature, and the children's attempts to uncover their true identity. In this story, the clues point to actual vampires, but the author never decisively steps in and settles the matter, so the reader is free to come to her own decision. The action is fast, with quick chapters that are short enough for the intended audience, and the tone is quirky and fun with just enough spookiness to thrill but not scare. I enjoy this series, and am sure my daughters will too, when they reach the right age. show less

(I now maintain a blog just for my kid-lit reviews. Find it at http://kidlit4adults.blogspot.com .)

A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of popular books that have been recommended to me. Today's titles are from yet another of these series of endless chapter-books designed for grade-schoolers, in this case all of them co-penned by a duo of friends who used to be grade-school teachers themselves; this is one of the types of employment I myself am hoping to find in the industry, to kick out such easy-reading 30,000-word titles once a month or show more so, which is why I'm reading so many of them these days. Now, admittedly, this particular series is based on a high-concept that I find tough to imagine lasting for as long as it has; basically, each title features yet another new adult in the lives of our middle-class child heroes who may or may not be a mythological creature, exhibiting strange traits throughout the story but never just coming out and saying whether they're a mummy or vampire or whatever. (And in fact there are almost 75 books in this series now, nearly all of them featuring a different mythological creature, which just on its own is pretty impressive.) These are very much for the younger end of the chapter-book crowd, in my opinion from ages 7 to about 9 or 10, featuring lots of illustrations and a ton of silly humor; and to their credit Dadey and Jones are much more interested in simply being entertaining than in trying to teach a moral lesson, usually a common trait among books for this age group. They're nothing special, but certainly readable and fun, and come recommended for younger readers looking for their first dose of genre excitement but wanting to avoid dark material altogether. show less

A silly series that creates more questions than it answers. It's great for formulating theories as well as predictions. The class dynamics should be very familiar to those of the Magic School Bus generation.

The Bailer School Kid series focuses on four children [Melody, Liza, Howie and Eddie]. Every book has the same basic plotline, the children suspect that an adult is not all that they appear to be. The children then go about trying to find proof and/or try to get rid of them. The books never say whether or not they were actually what the children thought they were, they are left open ended for the reader to determine what they thought.

This is a series of books that I highly enjoyed as a child and I still own the entire collection. Recently I started to reread them and fell in love with them all over again.

I read this a LOOOOOONG time ago as a kid, and although I don't remember much about it, I thought it was a fairly amusing book and I enjoyed it.

I think this book is a great book. It is very exciting and has so many adventures. It is about kids who get a new teacher because the old teacher is tired of taking care of the students. Could it be true that their new teacher is a vampire?