Publisher's Weekly Review
The sixth title in the Hamlet Chronicles series, A Couple of April Fools by Gregory Maguire, illus. by Elaine Clayton, continues where Three Rotten Eggs left off. In this installment, Thekla Mustard is unseated as Empress of the Tattletales and Miss Earth disappears; her students develop theories as to what might have happened, as they search the Vermont wilderness for her. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
As Miss Earth's class prepares to celebrate April Fool's Day, their beloved teacher mysteriously disappears. The solution to the mystery is bizarre, but readers have come to expect a melding of the everyday and the outlandish in this satirical series distinguished by idiosyncratic characters and laugh-out-loud dialogue. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 3-6. In this sixth installment in the Hamlet Chronicles, an April Fool's Day joke spins out of control, and beloved teacher Miss Earth disappears. Her students, including the faction of boys known as the Copycats, and the girls, who call themselves the Tattletales, set aside their fierce rivalries to unravel the frightening mystery of their missing teacher. Newcomers won't have trouble picking up the plot threads, and series fans will recognize all the familiar characters--among them, the flameburpers, fire-breathing, mutant chicken-lizards who end play a pivotal role in the high jinks. As always, Maguire layers his witty, absurd farce and spot-on portrayal of the social pecking order of middle-graders with larger questions about science, our threatened environment, and the uneasy relationship between species, be they gorillas, flameburpers, or boys and girls. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2004 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-In this sixth installment in the series, the rivalry between the girls' club, the Tattletales, and that of the boys, the Copycats, continues, but their leaders, Thekla Mustard and Sammy Grubb, are not quite as enthusiastic as they were earlier in the year. Before long, Thekla finds herself deposed by an upstart member. When new student and outsider Thud Tweed decides it would be fun to make trouble for Miss Earth, he helps the girls play an April Fool's Day trick on the boys during class, and the teacher puts her foot down. She bans the clubs from school and assigns everyone into girl-boy pairs for the upcoming science fair. Meanwhile, the one remaining Flameburper (a mutant chicken-lizard hatched in the previous book) is growing at a rapid rate and is clearly distressed about something. Could it be the mysterious creature rumored to be lurking around town? Then, Miss Earth disappears, and all rivalries are set aside as the Tattletales and Copycats combine forces to find her. Although the book can stand alone, readers already familiar with the characters and their history will get the most out of it. The tongue-in-cheek humor, brisk pace, and snappy dialogue make for a lively and enjoyable read.-Terrie Dorio, Santa Monica Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
What has got to be the weirdest year in the history of Hamlet, Vermont, continues in this archly funny sixth addition to the series. It is the lead-up to April Fool's Day, and all is not well. Thekla Mustard has been deposed as Empress of the Tattletales, and Thud Tweed is on the outs with the Copycats. Furthermore, Beatrice the Flameburper, the mutant chicken-lizard hybrid of Three Rotten Eggs (2002), is going through an alarming transformation into . . . well, it's hard to say, with a Freak of Nature. When an April Fool's prank leads to the disappearance of the beloved Miss Earth, the kids reluctantly set aside their differences in the face of this calamity. Maguire serves up a stew of characters who frequently teeter over the edge into caricatures, but the tongue-in-cheek text never panders to a perceived lowest-common-denominator, instead fiercely pulling its audience through a satirical romp most writers for middle-graders wouldn't dream of attempting. Is the formula getting a little old? Perhaps, but it's a relentlessly edgy and smart one, and as such, a breath of fresh air. (Fiction. 8-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
