ird School #1 My We Dan Gutman Pictures by Jim Paillot To Emma Contents 1 I Hate School! 1 2 Dumb Miss Daisy and Principal Klutz 7 3 How to Spell Read 20 4 Miss Daisy Is Crazy! 25 5 The Most Genius Idea! 33 6 What Do You Want to Be? 45 7 Bonbons and Footballs 51 8 A Lot of Books! 59 9 Put Those Books Away 64 10 Football Players Are Really Dumb 70 11 We Rule the School! 77 12 Poor Miss Daisy 81 About the Author and the Illustrator Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher 1 I Hate School! “My name is A.J. I like football and video games, and I hate school.” Our teacher, Miss Daisy, was taking attendance. It was the first day of second grade. Miss Daisy told everyone in the class to stand up, say our name, and say something about ourself. 1 All the kids laughed when I said I hated school. But there was nothing funny about it. I have learned a lot in my eight years. One thing I learned is that there is no reason why kids should have to go to school. If you ask me, kids can learn all we need to learn by watching TV. You can learn important information like which breakfast cereal tastes best and what toys you should buy and which shampoo leaves your hair the shiniest. This is stuff that we’ll need to know when we grow up. School is just this dumb thing that grown-ups thought up so they wouldn’t 2 have to pay for baby-sitters. When I grow up and have children of my own, I won’t make them go to school. They can just ride their bikes and play football and video games all day. They’ll be happy, and they’ll think I’m the greatest father in the world. But for now, I wanted to let my new teacher, Miss Daisy, know from the very start how I felt about school. “You know what, A.J.?” Miss Daisy said, “I hate school too.” “You do?” We all stared at Miss Daisy. I thought teachers loved school. If they didn’t love school, why did they become teachers? 3 Why would they ever want to go to a school as a grown-up? I know that when I’m a