Operation Yes by Sara Lewis Holmes

The students rustled with unease. Wasn’t their teacher supposed to say: “Welcome to the sixth grade, and I’m very, very glad you’re here, but as the top grade at Young Oaks, you have a responsibility to the rest of the school to set a good example”? Were they supposed to completely ignore her belly ring? Could they ask about her tattoo? And why would a teacher put tape on the floor?
Bo wanted to ask all of these questions and more. But Miss Loupe had asked her question first, and now she belted it out one more time: “WHERE AM I?” (4)

In Sara Lewis Holmes' book Operation Yes, Miss Loupe is loopy. Or at least, that’s what Bo and the rest of his classmates think when they begin sixth grade at the elementary school on the Air Force base in North Carolina. That’s because not only does she have a tattoo and a belly ring, but she also taped off a large box in the middle of the room, and then placed a ratty old couch in the middle of it. But Bo has more on his mind then what Miss Loupe is doing in the classroom, and in fact it’s actually the one thing he likes about his life. His dad might be moving the family again this time out of the country, and his cousin Geri moves in with them when her mom gets sent off to Iraq as an Army nurse. Sure Miss Loupe is weird, but when something happens that forces them to have a substitute, Bo, Geri, and the rest of room 208 learn just what really matters; how to say yes.

AMY