The new day dawned and the children cowered in Room 207. Has she been injured? Has she left town? They especially feared the next school day when Miss Viola Swamp returned. The students begin hypothesizing about Miss Nelson’s plight. If only Miss Nelson would recover from her illness. Where was Miss Nelson? Oh, how they miss her. When the day ends, the students slink away from the school. Room 207 has become an intellectual factory with a mean and severe boss. Soon the children are frantically adding up numbers and studying grammar, poetry and social studies. She looks so daunting in her black dress that the students think she is a witch. She announces in a grating, scratchy voice: “I am your new teacher, Miss Viola Swamp.” She raps a ruler on the desk and tells the children to take out their arithmetic books. To their utter surprise, a fierce-looking woman in a black dress glares at them. Giggling with delight, they hear the door open. Meanwhile, the pupils in Room 207 eagerly await their substitute teacher and plan to disrupt class with spitballs and paper airplanes. What should she do? The stress grows on the gentle woman and she comes down with a sore throat.Īfter calling in sick, Miss Nelson begins planning a way to get her students to obey. The children view her gentleness as an opportunity to cut-up and not study. She tries to encourage the students to learn through kindness and story hours. Their teacher is a sweet woman named Miss Nelson. There is no way around it: the kids in Room 207 are a misbehaving, rough lot.

The name of this funny book is “Miss Nelson is Missing.” Harry Allard has written a hilarious account of one substitute teacher’s trials and plans to tame her class. Students know the substitutes will be gone in a day or two, which makes keeping classroom discipline more complicated. While regular teachers know how to work with their classes, substitute teachers are literally thrown into battle. This makes it difficult to teach certain subjects, such as reading, that require focused attention.

In elementary school, students are often fidgety and need to move about. Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1977, 32 pages, Grades K-2.Ĭlassroom discipline is always difficult for teachers. “Miss Nelson is Missing,” by Harry Allard, illustrated by James Marshall.

Harry allard miss nelson