Middy Thomas

Gooney Bird Greene finds the needed room mother so that their Thanksgiving play can go on. The one hitch, however, is that this person remains incognito until the day of the pageant. Gooney Bird's rich words (like incognito) challenge her 2nd grade classmates to open the dictionary and find out their meanings.

Gooney Bird, the new student in Mrs. Pidgeon's 2nd grade class, arrives without a parent but full of confidence. She makes it clear that she likes to be "right smack in the middle of everything." Could her seemingly outrageous stories be — as Gooney Bird asserts — true? Fact is much more intriguing when seen through the eyes of an imaginative storyteller!

Once Mrs. Pidgeon has shared Aesop's fables with the second graders in her class, Gooney Bird comes up with the idea to have the children write their own. With the support of their oh-so-patient teacher, the students come up with original fables that truly reflect their unique personalities.