Bully Jake and Grace's Fate

PRAISE FOR KORTE'S RHYMING PARODIES . . . "IT'S A WELL-KNOWN FACT, children will take the path of least resistance until someone lights a fire under their feet. Mary Korte's one-of-a-kind rhyming parodies may be just what disengaged students need to re-ignite their ‘smoldering wicks'. Her parodies are, in my opinion, inspiring stories to which middle-grade students can relate." – Michael Beardslee, MA, Educational Programs Manager, HandsOn Greater Phoenix, AZSASSY KID BICKERING MIXED WITH SERIOUS INTENT WILL DRAW AND HOLD INTEREST . . .If you were to TIME TRAVEL back to the 1952-53 school year at Pine Township Elementary, you would see book-learning is of no interest to twenty-nine sixth and seventh grade students. Baseball is all that dominates their thoughts. Each sunny day they trick their wimpy teacher into granting them long recesses. WOW! It's boys against girls for hours of fun. With no one stopping them, they run the show. And oh, does that ever make the fifth-grade teacher mad! CAPOW! When May rolls around, look out.AND THAT MEANIE-BEANIE BULLY, JAKE DOCKET . . .With no rules or limit-setting, he's free to flaunt his arrogance. Much to cowgirl Dee's disgust, he victimizes Grace, a timid girl who believes she has no choice but to do as he says. FIBULATING JELLY BEANS! Get ready for some fiery confrontation.IF YOU'RE A KID WHO HATES TO READ, guess what! . . . Most of the pages in Korte's rhyming parodies have less than 50 words. HIP, HIP, HURRAY! And she makes many of those words literally dance across the pages.AUTHOR'S WRITING STYLE . . .Influenced by Dr. Seuss who wrote stories in rhyme to encourage young children to develop a yen for reading, Author Mary Korte—with the same intent for middle-school youth—offers pure reading enjoyment in three rhyming parodies that showcase a whole class of misbehaving kids.To make her parodies "pop", she purposely replaced mundane words like therefore, however, plus, then and thus with over a hundred (she's guessing the number) innovative quips. Get ready for GALLOPING HOOPSTER, LOONEY-TUNE SNAFU, TIPSY-TETHERED TICKS, RED-DWARF SMEGS, LINT-LICKER SLEWS, SCUTTLE-BUTT TUSSLE, SUGAR-PUFF FLEAS and many more. Words that may be foreign to young readers (again, she's guessing), plus archaic 1950's terminology, are underlined and defined in each book's glossary.AUTHOR'S INTENT . . .Korte initially intended to coach her rhyming parodies in 1950's terminology. However, assessing the end result as limiting and boring (Today's kids hate anything boring.), she uncorked her creativity and mixed present-day jargon with 1950's terminology. She also "rhymed in" oodles of new, kooky sayings.Korte couldn't resist spotlighting one CONTROLLING feature of the 1950s. If you check out the illustrations created by Matt Hinrichs. you'll see the dress code for girls was strictly dresses and skirts; no jeans or shorts.READERS . . .After enjoying BULLY JAKE AND GRACE'S FATE, check out Korte's next rhyming parody: HATS OFF TO MR. BOAR.