Review of This Business of Children by Chloe JonOaul

Vera, a gray-haired, puffy-eyed, plump fourth grade teacher who was in her last year before retirement has a story to tell. It's not the one she had planned to write about when she retired. In fact, she had just wanted to get through the year without incident teaching in a crowded school filled with kids from the “wrong side of the track.” Instead she can't keep her mouth shut, not after what happened to Dee, Mark, or Stu – the other fourth grade teachers in her school.
And so begins the complex story of teachers trying to do their job while juggling the events of their own lives during the school year. Testing needs to be done, children dropped off at school too early need to be given winter hats in order to stay warm, romances are started, betrayal happens, and a teacher needs to grieve the completion of her career.
It's also the year when, “after we watched the Challenger blow up, Dee said to me, “Christ, Vera, there it is – the ultimate shaft of teachers.”
Chloe JonPaul has pulled together an amazing cast of characters throughout the pages of “This Business of Children.” The narrator of the story; Vera, is wildly likable as she tries to weather the storms of what she had thought would be an easy last year. Instead she discovers that life is ever changing and you either have the choice of continually adapting or face the very real prospect of being left behind.
JonPaul, a retired fourth grade teacher herself, fills the book with inside information on the work that goes on behind the books and lessons in a school setting. With compassion she shows us how teachers struggle to keep doing their job under circumstances of deprivation, lack of appreciation, and where there is always a never-ending line of needy students coming through the doors. You teach for the love of teaching, but sometimes not even that is enough to get you through the day.
“This Business of Children” is the well- written, intriguing story of people trying to do the right thing under adverse conditions and it will draw you in from the very first page. You'll sit and read until the book is finished simply awed at what teachers have to face both in and out of the classroom on a daily basis.

Reviewer: Wendy Thomas, Allbooks Reviews. www.allbookreviewsint.com
Title: The Business of Children
Author: Chloe JonPaul
For more info:.Title: This Business of Children
Author: Chloe JonPaul
Publisher: Wasteland Press
ISBN: 978-1-60047-580-1
Pages: 190
Price: 15.95