The time has arrived. It's the big finale of Bruce Coville's alien saga. We had Broxholm's debut and Peter's exodus. We had Duncan's brain frying and the true intentions of the aliens revealed. We had Peter's exposition and more of a build to what's at stake. And now we're here. The ultimate test to see if Earth will be free to travel the cosmos, blocked off, invaded, or straight up blown up. It all boils down to this, so let's talk about My Teacher Flunked the Planet.
COVER STORY
STORY
Normally I do the "Lost Cartoon Flashback" thing for these, but given the ginormous exposition dump in the last book, it becomes much more tricky. But to simplify: An alien named Broxholm came to Earth to study human life and take children with him. He's defeated by Susan Simmons and the other students, but often bullied genius Peter Thompson left Earth with Broxholm. It's there that he learned that the space council has been stymied with what to do with Earth. Invade, quarantine, leave alone or blow it up. And Broxholm is on the side of trying to save it. After getting his brain removed briefly, Peter gains psychic powers and is able to contact Duncan Dougal, former bully turned full on brain radio, about much of what's going on. And we start where we left off. Peter has a finite amount of time to prove why Earth deserves to not be destroyed. And that clock is ticking. And sure enough, the book opens with that backstory from Peter, who does make mention of it just coming from him and that Susan and Duncan aren't with him anymore.
He also opens by saying that he's either Earth's biggest hero, or its biggest traitor, as are Duncan and Susan. We return to the ship once more and see the big red button like on the cover. You can't just press it to blow up a planet, but it requires six commands, THEN it'll blow up a planet. The group, Peter, Susan, Duncan, Kreeblim and Broxholm (also Poot) meet with the council, who tell them that they have three weeks to come up with a report as to what the final choice should be for Earth. Peter notes that each choice has its flaws. Leaving Earth alone means that the aliens expect Earthlings to just destroy themselves inevitably. Invading Earth, or more specifically allowing intelligent alien minds to help fix Earth, would likely fail because Earthlings would try to destroy the aliens instead of giving them any control of the planet. Quarantine isn't fair as it limits Earth from anything, any possible chance to explore outside of their limited range. And the last option... well we know why that's a bad option.
The five meet with the council who consist of an alien that looks like red seaweed, a shadow, a sea-green alien, one that looks like a giant bat and a silvery purple alien with tentacles. The group accept their tasks and the kids are given translators to understand all Earth languages. Suddenly, Peter passes out and has a strange dream about a wall he can't go over. He awakens shortly after. Duncan asks to keep Poot, the little slug creature he's grown fond of, to which Kreeblim just up and snaps Poot like a Slim Jim. However, it doesn't hurt the slug, just splits it in two so Duncan can now have a Poot of his own. As Duncan and Susan go to see CrocDoc, Peter visits with Hoo-Lan, his teacher from the previous book, who is still alive, but not doing so well. He's in a comatose state, but manages to wink his eye once.
The kids leave the ship and arrive at Kreeblim's house, the one she was using under her Betty Lou Karpou name. But they then hear a loud, booming voice in the house. That is Uhrbhighgjououol-lee, or the thankfully much less of a hassle to write "Big Julie". The kids discover that Big Julie is a giant eyeball that fills up one of the rooms. He is there to essentially keep watch to make sure the mission goes as planned. Susan then panics, realizing she's late to head home, so they just make up an excuse that she's working at the school with Betty Lou Karpou, then Duncan says that to cut out the effort of having to do the same excuse for an entire month, have Kreeblim claim that Susan got a travel scholarship that will take her to somewhere out of state, like a Grammar Rodeo in the vast cornfields of Canada. The group eventually make it to Arizona and talk over what they need to do to make this test work. The kids ask why not talk to politicians, but Broxholm and Kreeblim both realize that this could start a war, since humans sure like to start them some wars.
Duncan suggests using the brain fryer to increase their intelligence, which prompts Kreeblim to take him aside. Susan and Peter realize that Duncan will likely lose his super intelligence eventually once his fried brain runs out of that brain juice. After Duncan and Kreeblim show back up, they continue the plan which is essentially to ask people about Earth and have the kids interpret it for the aliens. Broxholm also gets really mad at the idea of television, which feels like a case of Bruce Coville protesting too much. The group head into the ship and fly over the world, looking at the many atrocities placed upon the Earth. A bloody and violent war in Asia as a man dies saving a young boy, trees being destroyed in South America. They arrive at an African refugee camp watching starving people with no food in sight and a woman holding her dead baby. The kids are freaked out about this, to which Broxholm and Kreeblim show them places stockpiled with food not being used and trying to get the kids to answer as to why earthlings would allow millions to die when they have the resources to help, to which the kids don't have an answer to.
The group return to Kreeblim's home and rest. The next morning, they feed Big Julie buckets of swamp water. Julie's mouth is now visible so it's not like they're throwing slop at a giant eyeball. They then create disguises to use in the outside world to reveal their own identities. They also use aliases. Duncan as Albert, Peter as Stoney and Susan as... well, Susan. A few weeks pass as they learn more about Earth, including a scene in a prison where a woman is being tortured, to which Broxholm knocks out the person doing so, because even he can't bring himself to not get involved. They return to Kreeblim's only to be caught by the cops. Duncan takes the heat to allow the others time to escape, but now the group have a problem. They have to spring Duncan from the cops before they find out anything. However, they can't find Duncan after he left the custody of the cops, so that presents further issues. They reach the last day before they have to return to the ship with their reports, and it's not looking too good. Made no better by a protest in their hometown about the presence of aliens and if the government is hiding anything. Peter and the others head to the protest where a rock is thrown, tear gas is deployed, and Peter gets trampled by running protesters.
Suddenly, Peter runs into a young girl named Sharleen, who is actually Hoo-Lan in disguise. Hoo-Lan also reveals that he used to be the ruler of the galaxy, but gave up the job because he didn't like it much. Peter mentions that it's not looking good for their report, to which Hoo-Lan says that the protests definitely aren't helping and that humans are the only species in the galaxy to see the idea of life on other planets as a threat. They look for the others, but have no luck. Hoo-Lan then takes Peter to a home for wayward children where they find Duncan, now disguised as a boy named Roger. More importantly, they find Ms. Marie Schwartz, his teacher that was abducted by Broxholm back in the first book, and even more importantly, Peter's father, who we learn are dating, which bothers Peter. But then again, anything about his dad bothers Peter. Duncan takes them to his room as we learn that Hoo-Lan has been fine pretty much this whole time and the comatose being in the spaceship is a copy. Duncan also makes Peter a Poot as he's been giving copies of the alien to pretty much all the kids at the shelter. Duncan squeezes a Poot that causes Peter to pass out, as Hoo-Lan realizes that the Poots must have a psychic link to the kids like an antenna.
Some time passes when Broxholm and Kreeblim show up with Susan who is unconscious and bleeding, having been attacked by one of the rioting groups, thinking them as aliens in disguise. Peter, still in his Stoney disguise, talks with his father, where he learns that his father really did love him, but was never able to outwardly express it, given his mother dying, not knowing his own father, never being adopted and his wife eventually leaving him with his son. But even though he never came off as treating Peter well, he was always proud of him. That's enough for Peter to remove his disguise and the two embrace. Duncan eventually unmasks, they meet with Ms. Schwartz and Susan and the group try to find a way to help Susan. Suddenly all of the Poots in the building merge together into a giant Poot and engulf Susan. As everyone returns to the spaceship and realize that they have not much time left and still no definitive answer to the council. So it looks like Earth is pretty much screwed.
On the ship, Peter and Duncan manage to contact Susan telepathically, who is still trapped inside the Poot. They also get Hoo-Lan in on this mental Zoom call and he reveals that he's been around for at least a thousand years and has tried to involve himself in the mission to prove the good of Earth, but failed on a lot of levels, including trying to stop Columbus from setting foot in America and causing genocide on the natives. He saw that the earthlings were getting smarter scientifically and would soon find their way to space, so he helped to invent the television, hoping that it would stall things, but also never realized the garbage that TV would produce. Susan recovers, but the whole Poot coverage now gave her the ability to mentally converse with the others. And that becomes the thesis of their defense. The group arrive at the council and say that the human species is one, one ecosystem that overtime built defenses on one another, but if they could reopen the ability to communicate mentally, then perhaps they could finally live as one. They also use the fact that Hoo-Lan broke galactic law by giving humans the invention of the TV as a way to gain compensation. Peter suggests that the council send teachers, hundreds, thousands of teachers to help the humans open their mental conversation and in about 40 years or so, they should finally be a true working planet, certainly not one only worthy of destruction.
CONCLUSION
So yeah, this took me a while to finally get to. It wasn't intentional, believe me. I really did want to cover this as soon as possible, given I had enjoyed the first three books. But it just slipped further and further back from the priority list. But I feel like I wanted to make sure I got this book right before I got to it. That it deserved to be covered properly or I'd be doing a disservice. And I think I did a good enough job that the waiting paid off.
This book is good. And it's good because it is a deep book. One filled with philosophical questioning about if we earthlings are truly worthy of surviving when judged by the rest of the universe. We are a shitty race of creature in the grand scheme given the history of bigotry, war, violence, murder, and allowing others to suffer for really no good reason. But the book's overall message is that we as a species might have closed ourselves off from one another. That if we were all open to each other we'd be better off. Though that does question if the book means more we give up individuality over being more of a similar hivemind. If the problem with humanity in general is that we're not all similar does seem a bit wonky in execution, but I get what Coville was going with this. That maybe it's not so much losing individuality but acknowledging that we are ultimately all the same in the true grand scheme. All pieces to a larger organism.
I do find it interesting how we got here. How we got to a book like this. This book saga started with a straightforward story about a girl discovering her teacher was an alien trying to abduct children. A story that, even with the twist of Peter leaving with Broxholm could have been self-contained. But clearly Coville had ideas for this series, and wanted to expand it to being a story centered around a larger issue. If Earth truly deserves to live. And I think that Coville wanted to trust his readers on how to interpret this story. To look at it through different angles, to see if they agree or disagree with the choice in the end. To show the reader the many evils of the world around them, while never talking down to them. He trusted the kid reader, which is something I find most authors have a hard time in doing. Like of the people I've covered, the closest I can think of that comes close to that is Ann M. Martin, though she doesn't do anything to the level of this book series.
How do I feel about the ending and the ultimate idea? Mixed. I do like the idea, but even if the solution is to help humans come together in connecting consciously, it also feels like an idea that the human species wouldn't take to. That the pushback, especially at first, would be extremely severe and not look good in the favor of Peter and the others. We're a species of cruelty and hatred. And if you look at how things have worsened since this book's release, I find it hard to believe that most of the crueler subsets would simply allow aliens to teach them. Could it work? Probably. But I think that giving it about 40 years is a pipe dream at best. I also like how anti-TV this book is. Like I guess the cover of My Teacher Glows in the Dark was literal with Hoo-Lan destroying the TV as the book goes out of its way to blame a lot of the problem with society on the invention of the television, which when you get down to it isn't totally wrong. And this book came out before the internet or social media and if it did I could see it being looked at as even more a threat to the ultimate idea to save Earth. If anything it would seal our fates much, much quicker.
Peter is a great focus. His arc is important as he's ultimately the last solution to saving Earth. And how his issues with his father conclude make for a strong heartfelt moment. Susan and Duncan are solid secondary protagonists, though it's funny how Susan started this series as the lead and by the end just feels like a side character whose main contribution to this book is being nearly killed then healed by a giant alien slug. Broxholm and Kreeblim are great, and you understand their struggle in understanding the plight of Earth. Hoo-Lan is frustrating. It really feels like his involvement earlier on would have made things a bit easier, at least in making it to the ultimate idea. I think the book really wanted him to feel like this great character, but by the end, wasn't as great as you'd hope. Big Julie mostly just exists. A cool alien concept, but really adds very little in the grand scheme.
So in the end, this is a solid enough conclusion to the quadrilogy. Is it perfect? Not really. Is the final idea ultimately the strongest way to go out? Not really. Does it perhaps feel a bit too preachy in its writing? A little. It also feels like such a bait and switch with such a cool title and cover that ultimately don't pay off in the story itself. But I do respect this book for what it tries to do. And for it being a book that doesn't feel like it ever talks down to its audience and respects the reader. Even respecting the reader enough to maybe not ultimately agree with the final choice. I give this book a recommend. Just maybe don't go into this feeling like it's the epic ultra finale you might have hoped for. Again, apologies this one took so long, but at least the wait was worth it... I guess? My Teacher Flunked the Planet gets an A-.
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