Mrs. Master is a Disaster

Reviewed by: Barbara Merritt - Scarborough School Department, Scarborough, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: December 21, 2017

Review

It is Grandparent's Day at Ella Mentary School. When Alexia's grandmother, Mrs. Master, talks to the class about her inventions, they decide to come up with an invention of their own and hope to make a "bazillion dollars." Mrs. Master agrees to help them and guides them through the process of coming up with and invention and creating a company to manufacture and sell it. They come up with a heated, glowing, scented, talking toilet seat. Their attempts to sell it door to door fail, but once a rapper creates a rap about it and puts it on YouTube, sales skyrocket until the electric connections on one of the seats fails and starts a fire. I know these books are wildly popular with children, at least in my libraries. There is so much silliness and repetitiveness in them, and in this one, a lot of bathroom humor. Young readers know these books are silly, which is probably part of the appeal. They can also feel satisfied reading a book of 100+ pages when they are done. As literature, they are not great, but if they get children reading, a purpose is served.

Overall Book Score: fair