The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2016 by Laura Shovan
Cover and interior art copyright © 2016 by Abigail Halpin
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Title: The last fifth grade of Emerson Elementary / Laura Shovan.
Description: First edition. | New York : Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, [2016].
Summary: “A story told in verse from multiple perspectives of the graduating fifth grade class of Emerson Elementary. The kids join together to try to save their school from being torn down to make way for a supermarket” — Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015026501 | ISBN 978-0-553-52137-5 (hardback) | ISBN 978-0-553-52138-2 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-553-52139-9 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Novels in verse. | Schools—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Stories in Verse. | JUVENILE FICTION / School & Education.
Classification: LCC PZ7.5.S49 Las 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Cover design by Kate Gartner
Interior design by Trish Parcell
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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For all of my students,
who have been my best teachers,
but especially Robbie and Julia.
“And they were all, when their
souls grew warm, poets.”
—RAY BRADBURY
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
First Quarter
Notebook
History
First Day
The Last Fifth Grade
Running For President
School Clothes
Questions
Then And Now
Percussion Poem
Ping-Pong Riff
Every Morning
My Teacher
I Know This One
Self-Portrait
My Name
Two Haiku
Top Ten Things That Stink When Your Father Dies
At The Movies
“El Palomito”
“El Palomito” Translation
Changes
Writing Time
Lucky Hat
My Twin
Picture Day by Sydney Costley
Picture Day by Jason Chen
Posters
Election Day
Ode To My Grandpa
Where They Live
Green Toenails
Mr. White Tanka Poem
Obstacle Course
Español
My Song
Campaign Manager
Election Day
My Way
Field Trip
News At The Newseum
Getting The Message
Speaking My Mind
SOS
Hijab
Is It True?
I Hate Halloween
Costume: A Rap Poem For Ms. Hill
Second Quarter
One Seat, Two Seats, We Have New Seats
A Limerick
Two Fibonacci Poems
Opposite Poem
A History Question
Indoor Recess
Window
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who Do You Like?
Special Person’s Day
My Name Is The Rock
Talent Show
El Dueto
Duet
Left Out
Thanksgiving
How To Make A Mr. Stick Guy Flip Book
Time Capsule Rap
Anything
Rennie And Phoenix
Different Doors
Macmess: An Experiment In Pollution
Things That Annoy Me
Nickname Rap
Try Hard
Crack The Whip
The Poetry Prompt Jar
Me Too
Senryu: Shoshanna Says
Snow Day
Winter Tanka Poem
Jerusalem
Photograph
Petition
Career Day Fibonacci Poems
Big Yellow Dozer
Rumors
Hungry Yellow Bulldozers
Signature
Free Speech?
Report: Nutrition Walk
Food Desert
What’s For Dinner?
In My Food Desert
After Our Class Debate
I Don’t Want To
Third Quarter
When Your School Has Old Windows
I Wanted To Stay Home From School Today
Birthday Party
Character
Faces
Target
Gracias
Thank You
Report Cards
Tryouts
Talent
Ode To My Twin
Ode To Pajama Day
Self-Portrait
Valentine Diamante
Hugs And Kisses
Called Down
In The Principal’s Office
Bad News
Japanese Painting
Tissues
Remember
Four Square
Girl Talk
Disgusting Discussion
Ode To Recess
Show-And-Tell
Cardinal Watch
Hunting Frogs With Raj
Hammy Power!
Why?
Rainy Day Poem
The Field
Turtle
Right Now
No One Knows
How It Started
Raj’s Rant
Lunch
Insubordinate
Haciendo El Papel De La Bella
Playing Belle
Being The Beast
Beastly Me
Stargrams
Fourth Quarter
Spring Break Five Senses Poem
Marvelous Matzo
You’ve Got A Friend
Sixth Grade
Little River
Holy Angels
Free Speech
Student Council
Ode To My Mom
The Problem With K–8
Stand Up, Sit Down
My Speech
How Many Hours
Ode To My Guitar
Civil Disobedience
Bored At The Board
No Show
What I Missed
Tigers
Makeover
Almost Summer
Jerusalem
The Funeral
Dream School
Red Dress
Time Capsule
One Wall
To My Teacher
Moving
Mr. Stick Guy’s Goodbye
Something Good
Painting
A Tanka Poem For Phoenix
Nobody Told Me
Clapping Out, Clapping In
Haiku
My Voice
Zoo Creatures
Unveiling The Mural
Dedication
Moving Up Speech
Self-Portrait
Goodbye
Acknowledgments
A Closer Look at the Poems in this Book
Glossary
About the Author
August 25
NOTEBOOK
Edgar Lee Jones
Yo, Notebook.
I am your poet.
I will fill you with words.
I don’t mind writing
a poem for our teacher,
some rhymes
Ms. Hill will feature
in our fifth-grade book.
My whole class
is writing down
what happens this year,
but I won’t frown.
I’ve got nothing to fear.
I’m already a poet.
My verses are off the hook.
Hey, Notebook,
hope you don’t mind
waiting in my backpack.
I know you’re hating
the dark in there.
Smells murky as old turkey.
Later today I’ll take you out
in a sunny place, tell you
what life’s all about
for a fifth-grade poet.
Fresh air, blue sky,
my notebook and I.
August 26
HISTORY
George Furst
My name is George Washington Furst.
Don’t laugh. My parents are history teachers.
They met at George Washington’s house.
It’s a museum called Mount Vernon.
Vernon is also the name of our cat,
who lives with me and my mom.
My dad doesn’t live with us.
He moved out and took half the furniture,
so probably we won’t visit Mount Vernon
on my birthday like usual
because nothing’s like usual.
If Mount Vernon is still standing
after nearly three hundred years,
why do people want to demolish
Emerson Elementary?
School is the only place
I can count on to never change.
Maybe I’ll run for class president.
If I’m elected, I’ll tell our principal
that buildings can last hundreds of years.
Mrs. Stiffler has to listen
to the class president, right?
If I save our school,
maybe my dad will get it:
Some things are worth holding on to.
August 27
FIRST DAY
Rachel Chieko Stein
We only have 180 days
at Emerson Elementary.
When this school year ends,
I will have spent
one thousand days
in this building.
I want a thousand more
so I’ll never have to say
goodbye to friends
like Sydney and Katie.
I wish Emerson
could be my school forever,
but everyone is talking
about a plan
to tear the building down.
Even if we write poems
about this year and save them
for the school time capsule,
it’s going to be
like we were never here.
I wish fifth grade
wasn’t such a tornado,
whirling and spinning,
everyone scattered
in different directions,
our school gone,
empty space
left behind.
August 28
THE LAST FIFTH GRADE
Sloane Costley
Walking into school in my brand-new clothes.
Last week of August, still got sunburn on my nose.
Checking out the little kids, I feel so tall.
Over summer, someone must’ve shrunk this hall.
Mom let me get lip gloss and some sparkly pens.
Sydney’s backpack matches mine because we’re twins.
I picked out exactly what we both should wear.
Yeah, we look alike, but you don’t have to stare.
Did you hear the Board of Ed might sell our school?
Emerson could be a mall or something cool.
If they knock this place down, we should have a parade,
’cause no one else will ever be the last fifth grade.
August 29
RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT
Hannah Wiles
My dad says if this school closes down,
we’ll get to go somewhere better.
My mom’s a major in the army.
She says the way to make things happen
is to take charge. So I’m stepping up,
being a leader. I got Shoshanna
and Brianna to help with my campaign.
Vote for me if you want to say goodbye
to bathroom doors that don’t shut right,
sweating in classrooms with broken AC,
grungy windows, grimy desks,
basketball hoops without any nets.
I can’t understand why so many people
want to save this run-down old building.
We deserve to go to school
someplace nice. It’s our right!
Vote for me if you agree.
September 2
SCHOOL CLOTHES
Brianna Holmes
I am hot-pink loud
and no one sees
the holes that I cover
with embroidery.
I am sleek black boots
up past my knee.
No one knows they’re plastic
and too big for me.
If a hem can be sewn,
you don’t throw out the sweater.
Why tear down our school
when rebuilding is better?
I love hand-me-downs
and thrift-store jeans,
and I’m still stylish
as the fifth-grade queens.
September 3
QUESTIONS
Katie McCain
Ms. Hill, do we have to start every morning
listening to folk music while we write poetry?
Writing is hard enough without “If I Had a Hammer”
pounding my head. In twenty-five years,
when some kid opens the time capsule
from our school, he’s not going to care about me
or my poems. Why can’t our class
do a cool project? The fourth grade
is making a photo album for the time capsule.
You could even put in that picture you love,
the one on your desk where you look like a total hippie.
Writing is worse than washing the dishes.
It’s worse than taking out the trash.
Ms. Hill, don’t you ever have a day
when you don’t have anything
to say?
September 4
THEN AND NOW
Shoshanna Berg
When my sister moved up
from fifth grade,
I stood right here,
so little I held my mom’s hand.
All the Emerson teachers
waited near the glass hallway
that connects our school
to Montgomery Middle.
On the other side,
the middle-school teachers
were ready for their new students.
My sister lined up with her class.
I remember her yellow sundress.
When the fifth graders
stepped into the bright hallway,
all the teachers clapped.
Goodbye, goodbye!
As they crossed from elementary
into middle schoo
l,
the teachers on the other side