The Unlucky Lottery Winners of Classroom 13

Gr 2–4—Twenty-eight billion dollars seems like a ridiculous amount of money to win and spend. When unusually unlucky teacher Linda LaCrosse wins the lottery and agrees to share the winnings with her students, one would think her luck was about to change for the better—except it doesn't. Told in short chapters, with each one devoted to a winner, the story of how the characters spend their wealth gets more outrageous as the plot progresses. From buying all the cats in the state to accidentally freeing the money in a hot-air balloon, most of the kids somehow manage to burn through their cash rather quickly and rather unluckily. Even the class hamster is in on the action. Elementary schoolers will find the humor in each situation, though it may not give them a strong grasp of how much a billion dollars is really worth.