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Rating: 
Summary: Forget Hogwarts! I want to go the Miss Clough's school!
Review: Albus Dumbledore has nothing on Miss Clough. Down a path behind her one-room school house stands a copper gate. And behind that gate lies the experience of a lifetime -- the experience shared by everyone in town on the day they graduate 6th grade -- the experience that shapes you for the rest of your life. There are no muggles here. Everyone who graduates 6th grade can go through that gate and be changed forever. It doesn't matter if you are new to town, or if your family has been there for generations. The author builds up suspense and then delivers. This is practical magic. I loved it!
Rating: 
Summary: Linking the Real and Natural Worlds
Review: Miss Clough, the aged, frumpy teacher in the county's last one-room school house, has an extraordinary reputation in this rural town. Everyone who has graduated from her 6th grade for over 25 years has experienced something bizarre yet wonderful--never to be discussed afterwards--in a private ceremony behind the school. Down a path and through a special, locked gate, to enter her private region of fantasy. What is this secret ritual--long anticipated but mentioned in tones of hushed awe by the privileged natives? Becky and her 4 classmates have waited for their initiation into the adult secrets all year, and now, it's Their turn. The great day has come! For their Zoological instruction each pupil has chosen a different animal to study: chickadee, frog, cardinal, swallow, and trout--but only with Miss Clough's permission. In addition they have been training their internal clocks to "go off" on pre-set demand. Bossy Penny is Becky's best friend, but the boys seem to shun each other. Tim, a newcomer to town, is very suspicious of all the secrets whispered about Graduation, and resentful that he had to sacrifice his cat. Mary Margaret is the overburdened sister with too many siblings to nurture. Denied her own childhood, she has little joy in her life and wallows in guilt and is obsessed by sin. The class wavers in loyalty to their admired teacher--is she a witch or just plain crazy? This story hooks the reader instantly, so that we too are desperate to go through the gate along with the class, in order to discover a new world. How will the kids be changed; or is it all a great, two-generational hoax? Delightful Fantasy which will keep you glued to the pages!
Rating:
Summary: Linking the Real and Natural Worlds
Review: Miss Clough, the aged, frumpy teacher in the county's last one-room school house, has an extraordinary reputation in this rural town. Everyone who has graduated from her 6th grade for over 25 years has experienced something bizarre yet wonderful--never to be discussed afterwards--in a private ceremony behind the school. Down a path and through a special, locked gate, to enter her private region of fantasy. What is this secret ritual--long anticipated but mentioned in tones of hushed awe by the privileged natives? Becky and her 4 classmates have waited for their initiation into the adult secrets all year, and now, it's Their turn. The great day has come! For their Zoological instruction each pupil has chosen a different animal to study: chickadee, frog, cardinal, swallow, and trout--but only with Miss Clough's permission. In addition they have been training their internal clocks to "go off" on pre-set demand. Bossy Penny is Becky's best friend, but the boys seem to shun each other. Tim, a newcomer to town, is very suspicious of all the secrets whispered about Graduation, and resentful that he had to sacrifice his cat. Mary Margaret is the overburdened sister with too many siblings to nurture. Denied her own childhood, she has little joy in her life and wallows in guilt and is obsessed by sin. The class wavers in loyalty to their admired teacher--is she a witch or just plain crazy? This story hooks the reader instantly, so that we too are desperate to go through the gate along with the class, in order to discover a new world. How will the kids be changed; or is it all a great, two-generational hoax? Delightful Fantasy which will keep you glued to the pages!
Rating: 
Summary: Over dramatic
Review: This book was overly dramatic and foolish. I felt bored reading it and was often annoyed at the way the author described the events.
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