Six Kids and a Stuffed Cat by Gary Paulsen

The school has a routine in place for storm warnings.  When it appears bad weather will hit them, the students are sent to the safest room to weather out a storm.  For these six kids, it happens to be the boy's bathroom.  That's an odd setting for a story.

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers and Edelweiss gave me the opportunity to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published May 10th.  

Five of the boys know each other from classes, the sixth is a new student.  As they ask each other questions, they suddenly realize why some of them act the way do.  This is an intense time with odd mix of characters but they find themselves sharing phone numbers and talking about insecurities.  

The thing that is special about this book is that it also has a play in it.  The bathroom setting makes it an easy play to set up a background for and the script is in the last half of the book.  If you have a real creative class, you might just want to simulate the bathroom scene and let your children go free form on the script.

The things the boys talk about are pertinent and interesting.  It is the type of story that can be read and discussed.

At least the new boy feels like he has some friends after this ordeal.  He was too scared to go to class the first day but now he's ready for the second day.