Mr. Bambuckle

March 25, 2019
Originally released in Australia, this neatly crafted schoolroom tale jump-starts the Mr. Bambuckle series with gusto, introducing an original and credible cast of young characters and an ingenious, perspicacious adult protagonist. Entering their classroom, the students in 12B find their new teacher, dapper Mr. Bambuckle, balancing on a unicycle on his desk while singing what he explains is “a rare Mongolian welcome song.” The classmates relish the good-natured newcomer’s adroit outwitting of the stodgy principal and creative reinvention of rules: he insists they yell out questions rather than raise their hands, retrieve their cellphones from “wherever you’re hiding them” to create new apps, and “come up with a quite ridiculous use for a bicycle.” Harris balances outlandish classroom antics with students’ heartfelt first-person stories, which reveal their fears, frustrations, and triumphs—and their growing self-confidence, thanks to the all-knowing teacher. Hart’s boisterous black-and-white cartoons help move the story to a mischievous ending that leaves readers hanging as the class bully—in a sly tweak of circumstance—is poised to emerge a hero in the cast’s second outing, Class 12B Fights Back, due out simultaneously. Ages 8–12. Agent: Allison Hellegers, Rights People.