Radio Fifth Grade

Deborah Dowson is a Canadian children’s librarian living in Harvard,
Massachusetts.

Benjy hosts and helps produce Kidsview, a weekly radio program that he
is determined to make a success, no matter what obstacles he has to
surmount. These include the massive amount of homework his new teacher
assigns every week, which leaves him no time to work on the show, and a
school bully who insists that he be allowed to read his inane stories on
the air. One of the most troubling problems is the weekly “special
guest,” a talking parrot who won’t talk, but is owned by the
show’s only sponsor and therefore must be featured on the program.
Benjy’s ingenious solutions have often comic and sometimes disastrous
consequences, but everything fantastically works out to everyone’s
satisfaction in the end.

This story, first published in New York in 1989, is a great example
Gordon Korman’s comic genius. In the ordinary and easy-to-relate-to
setting of the classroom, clever kids outwit adults and overcome the
most impossible situations in the most amusing and imaginative ways. The
wacky caricatures, such as the teacher who has his nose perennially in
his science fiction paperback, are another source of comedy. This story
will continue to entertain a new group of young readers simply because
it is so much fun. Highly recommended.