HarperCollins has ample reason to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the My Weird School series by Dan Gutman, which includes 101 titles published under 10 different series arcs. The series has been published in more than 12 languages and boasts worldwide sales of more than 35 million copies. Illustrated by Jim Paillot, My Weird School kicked off on June 29, 2004, with Miss Daisy Is Crazy! and will add a total of six novels to its roster in 2024, most recently this month’s Mrs. Marge Is in Charge!, the sixth volume in the My Weirdtastic School story arc.
Though two decades have passed since My Weird School first opened its doors, the author’s memory of his inspiration for its premise is crystal clear. When his daughter Emma, now 28, was in second grade, she began reading Barbara Park’s novels starring plucky Junie B. Jones. “Emma, like a lot of kids, loved those books,” Gutman recalled. “And I thought, ‘What if there was something like that, but written from a boy’s point of view?’ ”
The author decided to put that idea to the test, and wrote Miss Daisy Is Crazy!, narrated by video game-loving and school-hating A.J., whose second-grade teacher at Ella Mentary School doesn’t even know how to add or subtract. “I never viewed the novel as the start of a series,” Gutman said. “I was happy to sell one book to HarperCollins, and then they asked for three more, and then another four after that—and so it became a series.”
Though it wasn’t his original plan, Gutman was not surprised that the premise of My Weird School had series potential. Each book focuses on the same classroom of kids—who have progressed, if gradually, from second to third to fourth grade over 20 years—yet their teachers and the school’s other adult characters vary.
“Since a new grownup is introduced in every book, there are infinite plot possibilities,” the author said. “The series is set in a school where the students are normal, but all the grownups are crazy, and kids like to read about grownups doing dumb things.” His connection to his readers is innate, Gutman added, noting, “I’m lucky that I have the brain of an eight-year-old, which helps me relate to kids that age. I knew that it was important to make the book funny and silly—and it helped that the art is too.”
A Winning Author-Illustrator Team
An upbeat amalgam of text and images emerged after Gutman’s first editor at HarperCollins, Stephen Fraser, lined up Paillot to illustrate Miss Daisy Is Crazy! “I knew from the start that Jim was a perfect match for the story,” Gutman recalled. Over 20 years, Paillot has illustrated every novel in the bestselling series.
Describing their creative synergy, Gutman cited a common sense of humor (“Jim and I both grew up reading Mad magazine and then moved on to National Lampoon and SNL”) and their mutual flexibility. “We both know that you can’t make demands or get your way all the time,” he said. “Generally, I don’t have an image in my mind of what characters or scenes look like. It’s Jim’s vision that brings it all to life—and I rarely suggest any changes.”
Karen Chaplin, executive editor of Quill Tree, who has edited Gutman’s series for four years, underscored the collaborators’ complementary strengths. “Jim never ceases to amaze us,” she observed. “His illustrations feel familiar yet different for every book, and they enhance Dan’s humor and irreverence to make these characters feel like classmates and friends.”
My Weird School’s fusion of spirited characters, storylines, and images is well suited to reluctant readers—an audience Gutman knows well. “I was a reluctant reader myself, and I thought reading—and school—were boring and hard,” he said. “I know what bored me as a young reader, and as a writer I avoid things like useless adjectives and descriptions that go on and on. I like to get right to the action and make kids feel that the story speaks to them—and that even if they don’t like to read and don’t like school—this book is funny!”
It’s a successful strategy. Parents, teachers, and librarians frequently thank Gutman for igniting kids’ interest in reading. “Not a day goes by that I don’t get an email about children who never picked up a book until they read My Weird School, and who now read under the covers with a flashlight,” the author said. “That makes me feel so good! It’s not that writing silly words on a page helped me save the world, but I like to think that I’m doing something that makes the world a better place in a small way.”
Gutman, who recently completed his 190th children’s book, expanded his oeuvre in a different direction with Holiday House’s June release of The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra’s Needle, an account of how the ancient obelisk now standing in New York City’s Central Park was transported there from Egypt in 1880.
