Please Miss

Bernadette was just ten years old when her father packed her off to a convent school in Dublin. Seven gruelling years later, she returned home to Liverpool at the start of the swinging sixties. Bernadette had dreamed of being a teacher ever since she was a little girl so she promptly began a course at teacher training college, determined to give children the sort of education she wished she'd had. Bernadette got her first job at 21, teaching five to seven year olds in a school in one of Liverpool's toughest slum areas. The poverty and deprivation she saw at the school shocked her to the core. Children would frequently turn up shoeless and starving, but gradually Bernadette could see she was making a real difference to their lives, and found that teaching changed her own life in ways she hadn't expected... Rich in period detail, PLEASE, MISS is an uplifting and moving book that opens a window onto the colourful and fascinating world of 1960s Liverpool.

“The queer memoir you’ve been waiting for”—Carmen Maria Machado Grace Lavery is a reformed druggie, an unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet, and 100 percent, all-natural, synthetic female hormone monster. As soon as she solves her “penis problem,” she begins receiving anonymous letters, seemingly sent by a cult of sinister clowns, and sets out on a magical mystery tour to find the source of these surreal missives. Misadventures abound: Grace performs in a David Lynch remake of Sunset Boulevard and is reprogrammed as a sixties femmebot; she writes a Juggalo Ghostbusters prequel and a socialist manifesto disguised as a porn parody of a quiz show. Or is it vice versa? As Grace fumbles toward a new trans identity, she tries on dozens of different voices, creating a coat of many colors. With more dick jokes than a transsexual should be able to pull off, Please Miss gives us what we came for, then slaps us in the face and orders us to come again.

“The queer memoir you’ve been waiting for”—Carmen Maria Machado Grace Lavery is a reformed druggie, an unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet, and 100 percent, all-natural, synthetic female hormone monster. As soon as she solves her “penis problem,” she begins receiving anonymous letters, seemingly sent by a cult of sinister clowns, and sets out on a magical mystery tour to find the source of these surreal missives. Misadventures abound: Grace performs in a David Lynch remake of Sunset Boulevard and is reprogrammed as a sixties femmebot; she writes a Juggalo Ghostbusters prequel and a socialist manifesto disguised as a porn parody of a quiz show. Or is it vice versa? As Grace fumbles toward a new trans identity, she tries on dozens of different voices, creating a coat of many colors. With more dick jokes than a transsexual should be able to pull off, Please Miss gives us what we came for, then slaps us in the face and orders us to come again.

Happy 30th birthday, Please Mrs Butler! This witty collection of school poems by Allan Ahlberg, re-jacketed for its 30th anniversary and for a whole new generation of school children to fall in love with, is full of typical classroom events that will be recognized and enjoyed by everyone. From never-ending projects, reading tests, quarreling, making-up, excuses and 'Please, Sir, it isn't fair.' Fritz Wegner's line drawings beautifully complement the hilarious and poignant verses. Please Mrs Butler was voted the most important twentieth-century children's poetry book in a Books for Keeps poll.

Please Take Me for a Walk is a celebration of dogs and kids and community. The book stars a very persuasive pup pleading with his best friend—the reader!—to take him for a walk. He recounts all the fun things they can see and do: chase squirrels in the yard, greet neighbors on their block, visit the shopkeepers downtown, swing by the schoolyard, and then run and play in the park. The dog run at the park is filled with all kinds of amazing purebreds and mutts, and our puppy wants them all to see "my best friend and me." Susan Gal uses this story of a dog's best walk ever to catalog all the favorite places in a child's world. She starts in the house and the yard, then widens her scope to the block, the neighborhood, downtown, and the park. And she captures the magical way the people of a community can be brought together through their pets. The dog's enthusiastic voice and eagerness to go out walking will resonate with any dog owner. And Susan Gal's artwork is so enticing and adorable it will have even confirmed cat lovers heading for the pound! Happy walking, everyone!