3.5. Think I picked this up from a Little Free Library. It was strange and not like most YA books. Tons and tons of figurative language in this - the English teacher in me loved it but it seemed to die out as the story went on.

It was a very whitty and descriptive book. Great characters and a comical (and sad) story.
A great book.

Great family road trip material.
Something funny, a little out of the ordinary, with people and situations we could all relate to. Plenty of laughs and unexpected surprises too.

This story made us feel happy and sad.
Many wonderful emotional messages.

I really enjoyed the book, I just felt as though there was a lot of repetition in the middle section of the story. However, the characters are extremely lovable an human, and they add a lot to the enjoyment of the story.

Tough, humorous girl and her friend the screw-up class clown take on the new teacher.

Calma has been friends with Kiffo since they were kids. When their new English teacher, Miss Payne, begins harassing him in class, Calma stands up to her. It doesn’t do any good. Miss Payne only sees Calma as a troublemaker – albeit, a smart one. Kiffo plans to get Miss Payne and Calma somehow gets herself involved. At first, Kiffo just wants to trash her house, but when he gets trapped in her wardrobe for several hours, he learns of her late night clandestine meetings with suspicious characters. No innocent person would leave the house regularly in the middle of the night to conduct business. Unfortunately, Miss Payne catches Calma lurking outside of her house in the middle of the night and Calma is forced to invent some kind of reason for following her around. She tells her that she’s in love with her. Naturally, the thought is disturbing and abhorrent to both of them. Miss Payne is eventually so disturbed by Calma’s stalking, that she contacts the police. Things continue to spiral out of control.

After a high speed chase that ends in disaster – Kiffo’s death – Miss Payne offers an explanation for all of her suspicious activity, which sounds reasonable on the surface. Everyone appears to accept it, everyone, that is, except Calma. She writes down everything she knows and has a talk with an officer down at the police station, who agrees that some things about Miss Payne’s story don’t quite add up. The book ends with Calma being asked to come down to the station to make an official statement, so it would seem that Kiffo and Calma weren’t entirely wrong.

The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne is written from Calma’s point of view. In addition to cataloging the many misdeeds of Miss Payne, Calma includes a few flashbacks that show how her friendship with Kiffo developed, and what their lives are like now in their respective dysfunctional families. She’s a wickedly brilliant narrator, with a dark, scathing sarcastic voice. She’s also insightful. But, she’s also willfully blinded by adolescent self-absorption – she can see how her actions affect people, and she knows her behavior is sometimes hurtful, but she plunges ahead anyway (because pain and drama are a way of life when you’re a teenager). What keeps this from being one of those formulaic teen suspense/mysteries is Calma’s brilliant wit and sensitivity concerning Kiffo. Despite Calma’s tendency to be dramatic, the story itself is pretty tame – no graphic violence or terror. Even losing Kiffo is not crushing – mostly because his redemption seems impossible. Would he ever in his lifetime have been able to crawl out of the pit that circumstances beyond his control (for the most part) had landed him in? And we never get to see what (if anything) happens to Miss Payne. Or know exactly what her crimes are. So it’s hard to know just what kind of justice has been/will be served.

I felt a little bit let down by the ending. There was potential for something much larger and more satisfying.

I didn't finish the book. It's crap (No offence Barry Jonsberg)
i just didn't like it

The lesson is to not associate yourself with the wrong crowd. Love the theme of friendship and the typical socio-economic struggle that every book incorporates for English teachers to inhale it like coke. Kiffo's death was pretty sad tho. The ending page was good.

I decided to read this book because my peer reading tutor, Olivia recommended me to read this book. She told me that when she was Year 9, she read this book. She found this book very funny and interesting business for them. Also, the blurb hooked me up so I decide to read this book and find out more about them as adventure for them.

This book will fit the category of "A book recommended by a member of your family or friends or someone" because it recommended by my reading tutor, she experienced reading this book when she was Year 9 student. She had got English Scholarship.

My favourite character of the story is Calma Harrison. She is the person who wants to find out more about her new teacher called Mrs Pitbull Payne after her replacement of Mrs Brinkin, her old teacher, which she hates so much and so her classmates. She thinks there is something wrong with her as she is angry and tough at every lesson. She is always hangs out detention if her classroom misbehaves or not doing what the teacher said in 5 mins or not completing the homework/assignment on time. So Calma goes to investigate with her boyfriend Kiffo. During the story, she gets into big trouble with the police about spying at her teacher at her house, meeting place or wherever she is. She gets an interview with the police, the fridge (Calma's Mother) got mad at her. She wants her to be good girl not a monkey, who go to find out something new for her to learn. At the end of the story, Kiffo have died in the motorcycle crash and Calma is the only survival person in the crash. She attends his funeral, she has listen to her school principal and her teacher as they do their speech. Her new teacher, Pitbull talks about what she is doing in midnight and her own time as her speech. She is the drug councillor, she isn’t taking the drugs. She is dealing with the drugs with someone. The story ends with school report about Kiffo. This reports shows the memory of him. He is descripted as a talent student and disruptive but very good in his English.

My favourite quote of this story is “...That attitude is not helped by the company...” I like that quote because it makes me think that I can’t change the attitude by someone else or company. I will need to control the attitude myself or my teacher have to keep telling me to control myself by forcing me, like our class. Some classmate’s attitude is no good while others attitude is very good. This is important and serious quotes from this book because its keep our future going. If this quote is destroyed, we would leave school at 15 years old, no university degree to go.

I learned from this book is DON’T GET INTO BIG trouble with the Police or the teacher like they did. ‘Don’t ever do the wrong things, if you do it, there is no REGRETS for doing it. Don’t be sorry for yourself, do the right thing.’ That is the important message I have learnt from this book. This message is mainly for people who can’t cope themselves with the teacher or someone.

Very good story and funny story. I would recommend this book for people who loves to read funny and adventure books and also for people who struggled with grammar. Very good metaphor, similes, vocabulary and emotive language use in this story.
got mad at her. She wants her to be good girl not a monkey who goes to find out something new.

I liked this book much better than catch me if I fall. I really liked the main characters and their interactions with the world

This book is weird..
I read it for my English class and I just wasn’t interested in the storyline. Who cares if their teacher is a drug dealer? Imo I would just deal with her and get over it. But whatever, there’s other stuff I don’t like either. For instance you could definitely tell the author is a man. No 10th grade girl will go around continuously talking about how big her boobs are, especially if she’s insecure about it.

In conclusion this book felt unrealistic and really weird. I don’t think it’s worth the read and therefore don’t recommend it.

2020 EBN Challenge ... Category #9
Challenge Topic: A book with a teacher in it.

Written from the perspective of a teenage girl, the book deals with the trouble of high school and how 2 unlikely friends deal with it. Not to mention, the mean horrible teacher that makes their live a living hell at school and they just know she is up to no good.

The author did a great job of catching the spirit of how real school happens. He is a teacher, which gives him some insight, but that fact that he can delve in to not so pretty side of school from a students prespective... well, I get the impression he is probably a pretty good teacher. I hope so anyway.