One of the new classic series for children - Rated 
A truly great series. I first read it was I was probably 11 or 12 (which is the target-audience). I loved them. I have read them probably 5 or 6 times. Coville is an excellent writer; this is one of his crowning achievements in children's literature. Now I am twenty. I pulled out my old dusty copies of these works, and as soon as I finish Hunt for the Autumn Clowns I'm going to take a quick trip down memory lane with this serious (before I tackle the Potter books and R. Jordan). This is a very well-constructed series. The first book is an absolute classic. Although the others are excellent, just like Lion, Witch, Wardrobe this will be the one everyone thinks of when they think of the series. It has classic elements of an alien trying to kidnap people to do experiments and testing on. Save in this (if I remember correctly) you don't know WHY he wants the people, or kids. Then we go to the second, My Teacher Fried My Brains. A very lovable sequel, it is here we get into the mind of Duncan Dougal, the bully in the first book. We find "poots", a Medusa-like alien, and machine that makes you perceive music/TV in yr head and makes you a zillion times smarter (the zillion being a rough estimate, of course ;)). And it seems, perhaps, there is something more to the aliens then at first they thought. Won't give any spoilers away, so don't worry. But there is a nice little surprise at the end. Then we get to the third volume, My Teacher Glows in the Dark. My personal favorite, it's set on the spaceship New Jersey. It introduced all sorts of nice imagery, and concepts I have used in my own writings (The URAT. Surgically installed device, so you can understand the other creatures on board. Though not by device, I have used similar methods to cross over the language barrier when I want to have different species get together in my own stories for any suspended period of time). We get to meet the lovable Hoo-Lan, who is quite the doll. It is set entirely on the ship (with the exception of an instance where they go onto another planet), as state up above, so we get to see fascinating alien environments. Then we get to the fourth, My Teacher Flunked the Planet. It is here the series as a whole climaxes. It is the darkest story of the lot, primarily because of its subject matter is a lot denser and much more real in the sense of tragedy than the other three stories. The others build up to this moment. From a writer's standpoint, this is a most excellent case or instance of carefully crafted and wrought stories for children. It is here Coville ties up the loose ends (and there are quite a few). The ending is a very interesting concept or perception of humanity. Although I am a Christian, and I do not agree with the whole evolution idea, for the sake of the story it worked. It is much more of a sentimental favorite for me, because I grew up reading (and reading and reading and reading) these four volumes.
As I said, my personal favorite is the third story. The only problem with this one is it is heavily dependent on the others three books to carry the story. My Teacher is an Alien, which was never intended for a series, is the most stand alone of all the books. It has the most distinct feel of a modern children's classic.* But, unlike The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (for me), this is as good as the rest of them. Then the publishers wanted more because it turned out to be an unexpected hit. So he wrote the second. It is stand alone - to a point. You can tell there is more coming, and the issue is not resolved. Then the third one just exaggerates that feeling. Its like Act I builds and sets the rules. It doesn't need another thing to be complete. It is complete in sense it is self-contained. Act II further complicates Act I, and hints at what is to be in Act III. But to be complete, it needs Act III. Act III comes along. Originally, according to the preface in the Collector's edition, it was supposed to be a trilogy, but the story was too long, so he divided up into two parts. Act III in this instances just builds and intensifies the need for completion. It depends on the two acts before it to build up to it, and then it depends on Act IV to complete it. Act IV is the completion. (Much of what I say here echoes what George Lucas said of Star Wars in the interview released with them when they rereleased the Star Wars original edition. ESB is the best in that series, but, just like Book 2 and 3 in this series, need RoJ to be completed, and is not a stand alone film).
* (When I say a classic feel, its just like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. All the Narnia books are classics and are most excellent [scary, now I'm sounding like Bill and Ted - yike!], but LWW has the most classic feel of them all, and, btw, is my least favorite of the series. It has some classic scenes, especially Tumnus the Faun standing in the wood with parcels and an umbrella. But overall, the Christianity is way too explicit. I like, if you are using fantasy as a vehicle to express Christianity, not to be beat over the head with it, which is what I feel Lewis did with Aslan and the Stone Table. I love Narnia, and LWW is good, but the others are so MUCH better!)
Narnia is better than this, and most children's fiction for that matter.
Originally issued on Amazon.com on January 24, 2000
A most entertaining series aimed at younger readers - Rated 
With books such as this, by authors as gifted as Bruce Coville, it is harden to imagine that some kids just do not have any interest in reading. Heck, I'm an adult, and I loved these books. Neither too long nor too short, they put believable characters in an extraordinary situation, and they mix humor with warmth and intelligence. The series revolves around three pretty normal kids on Earth - the smart and brave Susan Simmons, nerdy dreamer Peter Thompson, and bully turned nice guy with newly-acquired brain-fried intelligence Duncan Dougal.
In My Teacher is an Alien, Susan is dismayed to discover that the new substitute teacher is actually an alien who has come here to take five students back with him to wherever he came from. What's a girl to do? She turns to Peter, a smart but unmotivated boy who eats, lives, and breathes science fiction. He doesn't exactly buy her story at first, but together they find enough evidence to convince him that she is telling the truth. Now all they have to do is rescue their original teacher, avoid being carried off into space by Mr. Smith, and somehow prove to even the most skeptical of adults that "we are not alone."
Duncan Dougal, class bully and somewhat questionable ally in the previous adventure, takes center stage in My Teacher Fried My Brain. Here, we see inside his unhappy life, come to understand why he lashes out at people the way he does, and admire his effort to turn over a new leaf in life with the help of an artificially-advanced intelligence.
The kids are now in seventh grade, and Duncan's first day is a rough one; as always, he finds trouble, and this time trouble reaches back and finds him as well. He makes a startling discovery - a discarded human hand. That can mean only one thing: there is another alien at the school. Like Susan in the first book, Duncan does not know what to do. He knows no one will believe him, not even his classmates; you would think the adults in town might be of some help, but they have all started pretending that the alien business of last spring didn't actually happen. Duncan soon thinks he has found the answer to his problem, though. After taking part in a demonstration of static electricity, one in which a machine zapped his brain, he began to feel smarter all of a sudden; he soon decides to sneak in to the lab and give himself additional brain-frying treatments. Despite all of his new-found intelligence, though, he has little success in figuring out who the other alien in school is. The ensuing action is not bad, plus we meet a memorable and mysterious alien pet called a poot, but a few aspects of this story resemble pretty closely the strange events chronicled in the first book.
My Teacher Glows in the Dark fills in the gap separating books one and two. Peter left with the alien Broxholm at the end of book one and showed up back on earth at the end of book two, and now we get to hear what he has been doing up in space over the course of the earth's summer. Instead of dealing with an alien among humans, we now have a human among aliens, and this makes for a decidedly entertaining read. We meet all kinds of aliens, learn a few things about alien cultures, and get to see all kinds of unusual technology in use. In addition to this, the human side of the story takes on much more significance. As luck would have it, the Interplanetary Council is debating whether or not to destroy Earth, and Peter finds himself smack dab in the middle of trying to save the world he left behind. Peter's friendships with several aliens on board the ship are really quite touching, as is his passion for doing whatever he, a boy of about twelve, can do to save his home planet.
I have to admit I was a little disappointed in the concluding story of the series. My Teacher Flunked the Planet is a much more serious book than its predecessors, conveying a strong message about human society. While it addresses important issues such as war, poverty, starvation, and other social ills, it comes off as a tad preachy in places. With the fate of the Earth hanging in the balance, it is up to the series' three young heroes to convince a worried Interplanetary Council that the planet should be spared.
Things aren't looking very good for life on Earth; traveling in disguise back on their home planet, our team gets a close-up look at many of mankind's worst ills, and even the kids are often at a loss as to how to defend a people who do such terrible things to one another. All of this is well and good, but the conclusion of the story (and thus of the whole series) was a let-down. The big climax is more of a hit-and-run than a well-executed denouement. It's still an impressive final book in a very entertaining series, but I just expected something more. While this book is by far the most important of the series, incorporating issues that some young readers may not have a full grasp on yet, it is far less entertaining and amusing than the first three books. For a youngster ready to make the move to more serious children's fiction, though, My Teacher Flunked the Planet stands as a gateway to a world where learning takes its place alongside pure entertainment.
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