Miss Martin Is a Martian
“The author no doubt has classroom experience. Maybe Colleen Fisher even uses her very own powers to enrich the experience of reading Miss Martin Is a Martian by forcing her reluctant students into creating their own fantasy stories about people they know who might . . . just might . . . have special powers, too.”
After Melvin Eugene Baxter sees the movie, Martians Invade Michigan, he becomes very, very knowledgeable about Martians. And imagine his surprise when he finds out that aliens do indeed live among us, disguised as regular people—like his new teacher, Miss Martin!
Miss Martin is definitely an alien . . . right? How else could she know that his healthy snack is a yummy chocolate cupcake instead of boring raw carrots? How else could she know about the plan Melvin and his best friend Billy are plotting in the bathroom? Maybe it’s because everyone knows teachers—much like mothers—have eyes in the back of their heads. Or maybe it’s because . . . she has X-ray vision!
And what kind of normal brain can know all 50 states and their capitols? Miss Martin must also have a super-duper Martian memory! And get a load of those extra, invisible hands! How else could she be such a math wiz, able to do problems with large numbers and count way higher than all her toes and fingers combined?
Perhaps the most dangerous of Miss Martin’s alien powers is that she has discovered how to make school fun. How else could she put her students in a trance, making them stop wiggling long enough to listen and learn—and, horror of horrors, like it?
The picture book crowd will love being in the know while Melvin, the protagonist,
is still trying to figure out what exactly is going on. Miss Martin Is a Martian is the perfect book for the beginning of the school term, a fun story to help any shy first grader relax and enjoy the antics of its very relatable main character.
Jared Chapman’s artwork consists of black line pencil drawings in the half-graphic, half-text style of the wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series. And the author no doubt has classroom experience. Maybe Colleen Fisher even uses her very own powers to enrich the experience of reading Miss Martin Is a Martian by forcing her reluctant students into creating their own fantasy stories about people they know who might . . . just might . . . have special powers, too.
Miss Martin Is a Martian is the winner of the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association’s (MEMSPA) Children’s Picture Book Award. Even reluctant readers will snatch up this very extraterrestrial tale.