“The rep­u­ta­tion of the fifth graders of Aesop Ele­men­tary School pre­cedes them and no one wants to teach this row­dy group. Luck­i­ly, Mr. Jupiter, their intre­pid, world-trav­el­ing, fourth-grade teacher, is will­ing to step up to the chal­lenge. As the oth­er teach­ers breathe sighs of relief, Mr. Jupiter rev­els in expos­ing this exu­ber­ant group to unusu­al and excit­ing infor­ma­tion. From singing Burmese guinea pigs to ancient texts such as The Baby­lon­ian Book of Bab­ble, which actu­al­ly pro­duces a thun­der­storm, Mr. Jupiter has all that it takes to keep their atten­tion. Just when it seems that the over-the-top silli­ness and slap­stick humor are going to over­take the sto­ry, the chaos is put into per­spec­tive by a moral at the end of each chap­ter. These morals high­light a les­son learned by the class or, in some cas­es, a par­tic­u­lar stu­dent, and pro­vide read­ers with the real­iza­tion that some­thing spe­cial and note­wor­thy has tak­en place. Kids will appre­ci­ate the teacher’s efforts on his stu­dents’ behalf and wish they had one like him. Sug­gest this title for reluc­tant read­ers and those who enjoy the humor of Sarah Week­s’s Oggie Cood­er (Scholas­tic, 2008) and Dan Gut­man’s My Weird School Daze books (Harper­Collins).” (Tina Mar­tin, School Library Jour­nal)