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Product Description Gooney Bird Greene likes to be right smack in the middle of everything. That's why she wants to have the lead role of Squanto in her class Thanksgiving pageant. But that role will go to whoever finds someone to be the room mother. All the parents are so busy, no one can bring cupcakes to the play. Gooney Bird Greene to the rescue! She finds a room mother alright, but promises not to tell who it is until the day of the play. Now the kids are really busy getting ready for the show. But will the mystery room mother really show up? Review "Relaxed black-and-white illustrations capture the diverse classroom. . . . Best of all is the story, which builds to a tense, beautiful climax as the identity of the room mother is revealed. "--Booklist About the Author Lois Lowry is also known for her Anastasia books. She and illustrator Middy Thomas also collaborated on Gooney Bird Greene. The author lives in Cambridge, MA. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. It was early November. Mrs. Pidgeon's second grade students were hard at work on their Pilgrim mural, which had been laid out on the floor. All of the desks had been pushed to one side to make room, and the second-graders were on their hands and knees, working with crayons. Gooney Bird Greene was right in the middle, as usual. "I like to be right smack in the middle of everything," Gooney Bird always said. The children's shoes were lined up in the coatroom because Mrs. Pidgeon had suggested that it would be wise to take them off. If they walked on the edge of the mural, their shoes would leave marks. "We always take our shoes off at home," Keiko had said as she untied her sneakers, "because my family came from Japan, and in Japan people never ever wear shoes in the house." One by one the children had removed their shoes. Gooney Bird took the longest because she was wearing hiking boots that laced halfway up to her knees. When, finally, her boots were unlaced and removed, everyone could see that Gooney Bird was wearing one red sock and one yellow one. "Gooney Bird's socks don't match!" Malcolm called out, pointing. "Of course they don't," Gooney Bird said. "I hardly ever wear matching socks." "Doesn't your mother roll your socks neatly into balls when she takes them out of the dryer? Doesn't she match them up very carefully?" Beanie asked. Gooney Bird thought about that. She looked down at her own feet and wiggled her toes, one set of toes in a red sock, one in a yellow. "No," she said. "My mother puts all of my clean socks in a basket on the floor of my closet. And every day I choose two. Some days I feel like matching, but most days I don't. "Most often," she went on, "wearing matching things gives me a feeling of ennui." "Oh, my," said Mrs. Pidgeon. She went to the board and wrote ENNUI in big letters. "Class? You know what to do." All of the second-graders took their dictionaries out of their desks. At the beginning of the school year, the classroom had only one dictionary, which sat on Mrs. Pidgeon's desk, next to her coffee mug. But Gooney Bird Greene, the new student, had arrived in October. Gooney Bird had very strong opinions about things. She had brought her own very large dictionary from home. On her first day in the classroom, she announced that she thought that every second-grader should have a very large dictionary. Mrs. Pidgeon, who was not accustomed to Gooney Bird yet, smiled. "We've always just used this one," she said, picking up the dictionary from her desk. It was slightly dusty. "The school provided it. And it's pretty old. But the school budget doesn't allow for bigger or better dictionaries." "If someone provided newer, more interesting dictionaries, one for each child, would you use them?" Gooney Bird asked. Mrs. Pidgeon laughed. "Yes," she said. "Of course I would." "Give me one week," Gooney Bird said. Exactly one week later, a very heavy box containing twentytwo very heavy dictionaries was delivered to Mrs.