For a quick weekend read, my daughter recently plucked a copy of Bruce Coville’s My Teacher Flunked the Planet from one of our family bookshelves.
I can’t remember if it’s my original copy or one we picked up somewhere along the way, but it features the classic cover from 1992, complete with a bumpy green alien with orange eyes in a threatening stare-down with two plucky earthlings. With the title splayed in bright, blocky lettering, this book may strike a cover-judger as silly and lighthearted.
Of course, it is full of Coville’s signature wild creativity and humor. There are characters named Kreeblim, Broxholm, and CroDoc, and a “glowing, jellylike blob” called a poot. It’s fun. But there is substance in this story.
My daughter sat down across from me, opened to a chapter called “The Forty Thousand,” and began to read it out loud. As she read, I remember experiencing the same striking scenes when I read the book as a kid. The protagonists of the story are in the midst of a global tour of earth’s most puzzling problems, as the galactic community calls the creatures of earth to account for their absurdity. This chapter in particular stares unflinchingly at the crime of famine in a planet with plenty of food. The characters, American kids, witness a refugee community in an arid part of Africa where children like them are dying—slowly—of hunger.
My daughter read the whole vivid chapter, set the book down on her lap, and looked at me with clear eyes.
“What are we going to do about it?”
That’s what she asked me. Now, I’m not afraid to say my daughter is a remarkable person. This was not the first time, nor will it be the last, that she floored me with her insight and conviction. I caught my breath, and we had a conversation about hunger, food insecurity, global resources, sorrow, and hope. I showed her the work of MSF (Doctors Without Borders), one of the organizations that our family supports financially. But mostly, I echoed her question. Not with despair, but with sorrow, invitation, and determination. Children’s literature has power to inspire and shape its young readers to change their world.
I am so grateful that Coville was brave enough to tackle a heart-wrenching topic in a way that honors and challenges his young readers, even thirty years post-publication. Last year, an audio version was released with a full cast of voices. Check it out here: My Teacher Flunked the Planet – Full Cast Audio
By the way, I’ve been a total fangirl of Bruce Coville’s since I was eight (long before he had a website). By the time I grew up and realized authors were people too, I mustered the courage to reach out to him (at the encouragement of the inimitable Laurie Halse Anderson, also a superstar in kidlit). He has always been gracious in response and willing to sign his books for me and my kids.
