The Hullabaloo Bugaboo Day

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

What in the world has happened to Upper Millidocket Elementary School?
Mrs. Onyer-mark, the phys-ed teacher, is sitting on the gym floor with a
sprained ankle and a pair of split pants. Mrs. Reed, the librarian, is
crouching under an avalanche of books and crying. Mr. Long, the music
teacher, was last seen screeching out of the parking lot in his red
Volkswagen. Mr. Potion, the science teacher, has disappeared behind a
wall of bubbles, and no one has seen Mr. Tiggle, the principal, since he
attempted to answer the telephone. The Bugaboos—a code word for
trouble—have come to Upper Millidocket Elementary School, and they all
have something to do with Miss Argyle, the school’s secretary, who is
nowhere to be found.

If you are a Sheree Fitch fan, this latest addition to her stable of
zany tales will not disappoint. Fitch habitually takes a scenario that
virtually any Canadian reader can recognize (in this case, a typical
Canadian elementary school) and

proceeds to demolish it with a chain of Marx Brothers-style disasters.
In this book, Fitch’s comedic talents are well matched by those of
illustrator Jill Quinn, whose black-ink drawings capture the mood of the
prose exactly. There is a minor moral to this story, but fortunately it
does not get in the way of the reader’s having fun. Highly
recommended.