Review: Nothing to be Quiet About!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 23, 2013
When I look back over the years, I have fond memories of kindergarten.  How about you?  I even remember my first crush.  It was in kindergarten with Michael Kearney.  We got to hold each other's hands as we walked out of the classroom and then the building side by side into our mother's waiting arms at the end of the day.That's one of the things I loved about reading Brea Brown's novel, QUIET, PLEASE!  She even included a scene with the kindergarten class walking out but first, having to file up inside wearing their sweaters holding their lunchboxes, one by one, side by side and, quiet, please!You may know Brea from her THE SECRET KEEPERS series or any one of several of her other novels.  But we decided to pop into class and see what's happening with librarian, Kendall Dickinson, kindergarten teacher, Jamie Chase and a second tier of not soon to be forgotten characters.  Who knew there could be so much drama and back-stabbing going on inside an elementary school?  Well, let me tell you, there certainly is at Whitehall Elementary.Starting with Principal Renalda Twomey who does manage to get some work done between mani/pedi appointments, Asst. Principal, Sam Kingsley who covers for Renalda's lazy butt,  teacher union steward and otherwise known resident _itch, Jane Pleska, tone-deaf-singing-speaking music teacher, Ester Wambaugh, pregnant PE teacher, Julia Vasquez, kindergarten teacher, Bonita Carlson - all overseen by district superintendent, Dr. Underhill.Kendall Dickinson gets a job in Charlotte, North Carolina saying she wants to be closer to her family, but we quickly learn she's escaping a bad situation in Kansas City.  Of course, the first promise she makes to herself is to swear off men, especially good looking ones that are smart!  Hum?!Kendall comes home after a computer program she designs is stolen from right under her nose.  The usually optimistic  woman is soured on the world and screaming kids aren't going to lift her spirits, but it's the only job she can get.  As she quickly finds out, she's not the only one with problems.I don't want to give anything away, so I'll try to be vague here, but this is a romantic comedy.  I found parts of the romantic part amusing because the way they behaved in many ways mirrored the fact they were working in a kindergarten.  For instance, she would pretend as if she didn't care, and he'd make believe he didn't know what was really going on, but he did.  In many ways, they behaved like the children they were in charge of.  Come to think of it, they acted like people in love, huh?!My favorite character in QUIET, PLEASE! is kindergartner Brody Daniel Sawyer, who like to meow like a cat, climb trees when he's bored to get the teacher's attention and seems to be the only one who fully knows what the heck is going on around Whitehall!  He also speaks Parseltongue!Now just be quiet, please and read QUIET, PLEASE!  Thank you Miss Brea Brown!