The Best School Year Ever

Barbara Robinson’s The Best School Year Ever, first published in 1994, is a humorous middle grade realistic novel told from the perspective of sixth-grade student Beth Bradley. When Beth is assigned to come up with compliments for her classmates, she struggles to find something nice to say about Imogene Herdman. Imogene is part of a notorious family of badly behaved children, and Beth shares several stories of the terrible things that Imogene and her siblings have done over the years. By the novel’s end, Beth’s perspective shifts slightly, and she is finally able to see that there is more to Imogene than selfishness and destruction. The Best School Year Ever is the second book in Robinson’s The Herdmans series. Robinson is also the author of many short stories and poems, as well as several other middle grade novels and a picture book, The Fattest Bear in the First Grade. The Best School Year Ever has been adapted into a children’s play by the same title. 

This study guide refers to the 1994 HarperCollins hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of bullying, animal cruelty, ableism, and child abuse. Specifically, the text depicts a family of children suffering from parental neglect.

Plot Summary

Beth Bradley is a sixth-grade student in Miss Kemp’s class at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School. During the school year, Miss Kemp wants her students to come up with compliments for each of their classmates. In June, she plans to have them draw names and offer several compliments to the person they randomly selected. Beth is unhappy about this assignment because one of her classmates is Imogene Herdman. Beth does not think she can come up with any honest compliments for Imogene, because Imogene is a member of the notorious Herdman family, a group of six children whose single mother works long hours and does not adequately care for or supervise them. The Herdmans are constantly stealing, lying, and causing mayhem. As a result, they are banned from most of the businesses and municipal buildings in town.

Beth gives many examples of their bad behavior. They temporarily stole Louella McCluskey’s baby brother, Howard, to use in a scheme to trick other children into paying to see a supposedly tattooed baby. They put frogs in the Town Hall drinking fountain, got stuck in a gas station bathroom, and created chaos by trying to wash their cat at the laundromat. During the current school year, a snake bites Leroy Herdman, and when the snake dies, he brings it to school and scares people with it by leaving it in unexpected places. Beth’s mother urges her friend, Miss Philips, to check on Leroy to see if he needs medical attention for the snake bite. Miss Philips, who is the Herdmans’ social worker, refuses to check on the child, saying that she will not go inside the Herdmans’ dirty, chaotic home and that she sympathizes with the snake more than Leroy. Miss Philips does go to the school to urge the principal to give Leroy a Good School Citizen award for eventually burying the snake, thinking that this might give Leroy an incentive to behave better in the future, but her plan fails.

Gladys Herdman pressures a second-grade student named Eugene to enter The Woodrow Wilson School talent show. The talent she coerces him into displaying is smashing walnuts on his head. This thrills the students in the audience, who cheer for him and give him the nickname “Hammerhead.” The adults are less pleased, and there is a big commotion as the adults try to decide whether to intervene. During the chaos, the refreshments intended for the audience disappear, and many people are convinced that Gladys pressured Eugene into his act specifically to create a distraction so that she could steal the refreshments.

Imogene spreads rumors that the teacher’s lounge is full of treats and that people can get in if they know the password. She cautions students not to try, however, as she claims that any student who gets in will be permanently held there against their will. Students begin avoiding going near the lounge, and when some teachers, a district supervisor, and Mrs. Wendleken are accidentally locked inside, no one but Imogene is nearby. Imogene releases them and is treated like a hero by the visiting supervisor, who does not know anything about the Herdman children.

After Alice Wendleken mocks the Herdmans for not being allowed on the school bus, the Herdmans begin showing up at their neighborhood’s bus stop each morning. They pretend to be deathly afraid of Bus 6, the bus assigned to their route. Eventually, other children become fearful and start pretending to be sick so that they do not have to ride the bus. When the principal is told why children are suddenly afraid of Bus 6, he tells the Herdman children to ride it in order to show others that it is perfectly safe. They triumphantly ride the bus for several days and then get bored with the experience and begin walking to school again.

For a short period, Louella is forced to bring her toddler brother, Howard, to school with her because his babysitter quits. Howard is very dependent on his security blanket, and the sixth-grade students steal his blanket to watch him have a tantrum and hold his breath. This infuriates Imogene, who defends Howard and makes sure that no one takes the blanket again. On Howard’s last day, the blanket disappears. No one will admit to knowing where it is, but a day later, Imogene shows up with what she says is Howard’s blanket. Louella and Beth find out that, actually, the art teacher accidentally threw Howard’s blanket away, and Beth realizes that Imogene gave Howard her own baby blanket. She finally has a compliment to give Imogene: Imogene is sympathetic.

On a day when all six Herdman children are absent from school, the school finally has a successful fire drill and wins an award from the fire department. Everyone is excited about the award assembly, and 10 children and two alternates are chosen to represent the school on the Fire Safety Team. The team practices after school to demonstrate how to react in case of fire. The Herdmans get wind of this and insist on joining the team. They intimidate many students into quitting the team. Then, a chicken pox epidemic sweeps through the school, and the assembly has to be canceled. The award presentation is moved to the firehouse, and only the Fire Safety Team is invited. By this time, the only remaining members of the team are the six Herdmans, and they get their picture in the paper wearing their matching Fire Safety Team t-shirts. Later, a chance remark of Imogene’s in class makes everyone wonder if the Herdmans were actually the ones who started the chicken pox outbreak.

At the end of Beth’s sixth-grade year, Beth draws Imogene’s name as the person to whom she must give extra compliments. She begins compiling a list that she does not feel particularly good about, because she worries that it is insincere. When Imogene rescues a fellow student whose head is stuck in a bike rack, however, Beth sees that Imogene is clever and resourceful. When the day comes to give the compliments in front of the class, Alice criticizes Beth, claiming that she is just making up fake compliments for Imogene and that she could not possibly mean them. Beth realizes that she actually does mean the things she has said about Imogene: Imogene has many good qualities alongside her bad ones, and—like everyone else—can choose to use her good qualities to create a wonderful future for herself.