Jared Lee has heavily illustrated this installment of Mike Thaler’s Black Lagoon series in black and white drawings.

Hubie and his class have never celebrated the 100th day of school before. Their teacher, Mrs. Green, wants them to bring 100 of something to school on that day. Hubie begins with 6 complaints about school, but “Mrs. Green says that’s not in the spirit of the day.” (p. 11) What do I have 100 of to bring to school for my homework? What to bring in? Hubie doesn’t have enough baseball cards and grandma is only 81 years old, not 100. all the students are keeping their 100 collection a secret. The other teachers are getting in on the event by having a 100-yd. dash in PE, and counting to 100 by twos, and Mrs. Green “is bringing in a hundred-dollar bill. I’ve never seen one, and whoever can guess who’d on it will get to hold it for a  hundred minutes. Wow! The guesses range from George Washington to Spider-Man.” ( p. 41) When the day arrives one student brings one hundred pennies, another one tries to do one hundred push-ups, “Penny sings a song with one hundred notes– all the wrong ones”, someone else has the class stay quiet for one hundred secrets,  one hundred knock-knock jokes, and then it is Hubie’s turn. He has composed a poem with one hundred words in it.  [I can’t wait for 100 Day next school year, so I can copy and enlarge Hubie’s poem on my library bulletin board.]

Thaler has included at least three idioms in this story: 1) playing cards close to vest, 2) clammed up, and 3) back to square one hundred.