THE SECRET LIFE OF MS. FINKLEMAN

A seventh-grade history project to "find a mystery, and solve it" transforms a creative preteen and her classmates when she unlocks the secret life of their Music Fundamentals teacher, Ms. Finkleman, who's "so totally unremarkable as to be essentially invisible." Bethesda Fielding's ace research reveals the obscure Ms. Finkleman as Little Miss Mystery, former lead singer of an all-girl punk-rock band in the 1990s, prompting the school principal to demand Ms. Finkleman orchestrate a rock concert for the county choral competition. Ms. Finkleman co-opts Tenny Boyer, a student obsessed with rock music, to covertly create and direct the performance and Bethesda to tutor him in history. Enthusiasm for the concert swells, but things disintegrate when Tenny fails at history and Bethesda makes a bad choice as she tries to help him. Liberally laced with humor and featuring an upbeat heroine, unexpected friendship and rock-music trivia, this witty middle-school drama offers a lighthearted lesson in the importance of getting the facts straight. Readers will rock with laughter. (Fiction. 8-12)