Bloor, Edward. Story time.Harcourt. 424p. c2004, 0-15-204670-4. $17.00. J When George and Kate are admitted to the elite Whittaker Magnet School magnet school n. A public school offering a specialized curriculum, often with high academic standards, to a student body representing a cross section of the community. as part of the county's "Leave No High-Scoring Child Behind Program," they have high expectations, as the school has the highest test scores in the country. Their hopes are quickly dashed, though, when they realize that the students do nothing but practice test-taking in windowless rooms and that the administrators and their offspring are pompous pom·pous adj. 1. Characterized by excessive self-esteem or exaggerated dignity; pretentious: pompous officials who enjoy giving orders. 2. , vain and uncaring. Worse still, there seems to be an evil spirit loose in the building, with mayhem mayhem (mā`hĕm, mā`əm), in common law, the crime of willfully injuring a person so as to diminish his or her capacity for self-defense. and murder in mind. It's up to George and Kate to trap the spirit and enact some serious school reform in this combined ghost story/broad satire of modern educational practices. Bloor, author of Tangerine tangerine: see orange. tangerine Small, thin-skinned variety of the mandarin orange species (Citrus reticulata deliciosa) of the rue family (citrus family). and Crusader, weaves in many other plotlines as well, such as Kate's search for her lost father and her mother's search for self-confidence, and offers some darkly humorous portraits of educational administrators and local bigwigs. A funny, offbeat off·beat n. Music An unaccented beat in a measure. adj. Slang Not conforming to an ordinary type or pattern; unconventional: offbeat humor. , often Gothic tale. Paula Rohrlick, KLIATT |
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