The Computer Teacher from the Black Lagoon

Black Lagoon #19

by Mike Thaler, Jared Lee (Illustrator)

Beware of Mrs. Pluggins, the scary computer teacher. She has an electric personality, and might just shock you with it! YIKES!

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Technology, School, Humor

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Mike Thaler, born in Los Angeles, started his professional career drawing cartoons for adults. A children's book editor saw one of his cartoon stories in a national magazine and encouraged Mike to try writing for children. His first attempt met with success, and "The Magic Boy" was published in 1961.

Mike has produced over 220 published books and is known as “America’s Riddle King.” He has also been called “The Court Jester of Children’s Literature.”

Mike Thaler lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Patty. He gladly welcomes all invitations to do church and school programs, and other book events.

Mike travels each year throughout the world helping children and teachers create their own stories, riddles, and books. He writes and teaches with creativity, inspiring his audiences with a love of language.

--from the author's website

Reviews

[Molly Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really just to use for fun. It could be a great lesson to really get your students introduced to technology. The book uses a lot of descriptive words to describe the "teacher" when it is really the computer. For example, "Miss. Plugins eats disks and chips". At the end of each page, (it does this on every page) you could have the students make the connection of how it refers to a computer when the book is talking about the "teacher". This book is great for the kids to use their imagination.

[T Crockett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like this series, but this one didn't quite work. Instead of rhymes and puns, there was a lot of computer jargon that when the kids asked me to explain, I could only explain the computer meaning (not what they were supposed to mean in the story). On the other hand, it was funny to be explaining already outdated tech like floppy disks.

Read to kids aged 4-11. The older ones loved explaining terms and puns. The younger ones were fascinated by the illustrations. So really the rating is my opinion rather then theirs.

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is silly and uses plays on words with lots of computer jargon. It would be good to read to a class to discuss how the terms in the story actually relate to real computers. The pictures in it are entertaining and contain fun little details that add to the story. I think this would make a great book to go on a classroom library shelf because its clever use of words will appeal to confident readers while it's detailed pictures will appeal to developing readers.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hubie's jargon is thick with computer lingo, jokes, and puns as his imagination gets the best of him as he prepares to take a computer class with his teacher Miss Pluggins. Some of his fears are the one-eyed monitors, Weird Wild Web, pixels, or winding up as roadkill on the information superhighway, and avoiding Miss Pluggins big dog named browser just to name a few. It all sounds dangerous to Hubie, but once inside the class he discovers he's beginning a great adventure.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mrs. Clampitt gave me this book. She is my mentor/"boss" in the computer lab. She is the technology specialist and I am the technology aide (I hate that word aide). It is pretty darn cute. Benji likes it and is now checking out all the different books about the teachers from the black lagoon. I have read it to one of my classes in the lab. For a kid book, it was over the kindergarteners heads!

[Becky B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little boy is terrified about his first computer class. He has heard horrifying rumors about what goes on in that class. Most of his misconceptions, the reader will realize, are due to him mis-hearing and misunderstanding computer terms.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think this book is so cool and also the author and illustator!

[Roxann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute book for children. The author was very inventive using computer language within her story line.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love these books, as does my 5-year-old. He finds them humorous although I don't think he gets all the jokes based around computer jargon. The illustrations are the best too!

[Ann Dipaolo]

i did not



get to read it