ACTIVITIES
#1: WHY MAGGIE LOVES SIR ISAAC NEWTON
Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English physicist and mathematician. He was smart, observant, and had great hair.
One of the things he liked to observe was what happens to an object (like a ball) when different forces (like gravity, friction, tension, or magnetism) act on it. Some of these observations became important laws of physics that help explain why things do the things they do.
Maggie and Sir Isaac both love laws and equations. They’re very useful when planning a hack!
Newton’s First Law of Motion says that an object at rest will stay at rest and an object in motion will stay in motion as long as all the forces acting on it are balanced. But what about when they’re not?
That’s why Maggie loves Newton’s Second Law of Motion: Acceleration (think of it as a change in speed) occurs when unbalanced forces act on an object.
(FORCE) = (MASS) X (ACCELERATION)
Maggie has a hack in mind. She wants to catapult a rubber mouse through Mrs. Dornbusch’s open window and have it land on her desk with great force.
She has two mice and two catapults. The first mouse weighs 5 ounces and the first catapult can accelerate any mouse at a rate of 10 meters/second/second. The second mouse weighs 10 ounces and the second catapult can accelerate any mouse at a rate of 5 m/s/s.
Which mouse will land on Mrs. Dornbusch’s desk with the greatest force?
Hey, here’s a follow-up question: Can you think of a better plan for Maggie’s hack? And what will you title the picture that Lena takes of Mrs. Dornbusch’s reaction?
Answer: Both mice will land with exactly the same force. The better plan is to use the heavier mouse with the faster catapult. That will create the greatest force—and get the funniest reaction out of Mrs. Dornbusch.
#2: WHAT IF MIDDLE SCHOOL OBSERVED THE LAWS OF MOTION?
Maggie loves Newton’s Second Law of Motion:
(FORCE) = (MASS) X (ACCELERATION)
Just for fun, try to imagine that this law applies to problems at Oda M!
Think of each of the following problems as a ball (that’s the object with a certain size or mass), each of the following people as a force, and the results as change in direction (that’s what we’ll call acceleration).
Some of the problems are BIG and will need a lot of force to create a change. Some of the problems are SMALL and won’t require much to move the ball.
Some of the forces are STRONG and others are WEAK. (Think about how much force you exert when you really care versus when you don’t.)
So consider each of the following situations. How BIG is the problem? How STRONG are the forces acting in opposite directions?
Now make your best guess: In which direction do you think the ball will roll? There are no right or wrong answers, so have fun and discuss with your friends!
Will spontaneous and artistic Lena convince Maggie to wing it? Or will Maggie win over Lena with logic and reason?
How much do you think Maggie and Lena care about wishing Mr. Shute well? How much do you think he never wants to see either of them again?
Do you think Kayla wants to give up her fabulous wardrobe? What if Maggie had to dress like everyone else? What if Lena could never wear her Dada Is My Daddy T-shirt? Who do you think will win this fight?
Will there be a new group cheer or not? Who is more passionate about this problem, Maggie or Kayla? How hard will it be to convince the students in B-1?
This one is tough! Will Lyle succeed in lighting a paper airplane on fire? Will Mrs. Dornbusch care enough to stop him? You be the judge!
#3: HOW TO MAKE A DADA POEM
Dada was an art movement that began during World War I and continued into the early 1920s. It was an explosive reaction to the horrors of the war and embraced freedom by deliberately breaking rules and creating purposeful silliness. Unlike Maggie, followers of Dada believed that random chance could lead to excellent outcomes.
With this idea in mind, poets such as Tristan Tzara arranged words randomly to create Dada poems. Some people considered these poems to be nonsense while others believed they freed us from the idea that poetry (or anything) had to be the way it always had been. What do you think?
If you like, try creating a Dada poem yourself. Here’s an updated version of Tzara’s original instructions:
•Find a newspaper, book, old journal entry, or article printed from the internet.
•Take a pair of scissors.
•Choose a paragraph (or section) that is as long as you want your poem to be.
•Cut out the paragraph.
•Cut out each individual word in the paragraph.
•Put the pieces in a bag.
•Shake gently.
•Next pull out the pieces, one by one.
•Carefully write down the words in the exact order you took them from the bag. No cheating!
•Ta-da! Dada! You are now the author of an infinitely original poem.
What do you think? Is it nonsense or does it express something about you or the world?
Here is a Dada poem created from a recent newspaper article:
listening
plunging
download while the few been
streaming recorded theme
online habits
business the CD
and
shot the last sales
has in up
has for that shift years
were quickly prevailing as music
#4: ARE YOU A SECRET DADAIST?
Take this quick quiz to find out if you have what it takes to hang with Lena and challenge the status quo!
1. When you were little and played with blocks, your favorite thing to do was:
A. build towers with the blocks
B. knock the block towers down
C. build the towers and then knock them down
D. I refuse to acknowledge the existence of blocks.
2. In your opinion, which of the following is an example of great poetry?
A. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
B. O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done
C. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
D. penguin narrow and standoff rattling boots justice flawed is his said no tweets destroy!
3. Which gift would you most like to receive?
A. a really good book
B. a new bike
C. a gift certificate to your favorite clothing store
D. a toilet seat to hang on the wall
4. If you could have tickets to any concert, which concert would you choose?
A. The Foo Fighters
B. Adele
C. One Direction
D. fifty-two people who are not musicians playing random notes on different instruments at exactly the same time
5. If you could choose to eat any dessert, you would choose:
A. chocolate ice cream
B. apple pie
C. vanilla cake with strawberry frosting
D. raisins, olives, and potato chips covered in ketchup and maple syrup and topped with a postage stamp
6. In your opinion, the greatest threat the world faces is:
A. the invasion of Martians
B. a zombie apocalypse
C. a mutant virus
D. war
7. Which of these statements is true?
A. The month after July is August.
B. A triangle has three sides.
C. If a = b, then b = a.
D. There is no such thing as truth.
8. If a person in authority tells you to do something, you will:
A. do it
B. ask the person “why?”
C. decide for yourself whether it is the right thing to do
D. run in circles like a chicken with its head cut off screaming at the top of your lungs: “funhouse messy lightning old shoes!”
9. If faced with the problem o
f being lost in the wilderness, you would:
A. stay in one place in the hopes of being found
B. hike in the hopes that you would find your way back to civilization
C. choose to live the rest of your life in the wilderness
D. write a manifesto about why a primitive life is superior to all others
10. If you were walking down the street and found an empty bottle of Moxie that someone had tossed on the side of the road, you would say:
A. “People shouldn’t litter!”
B. “Boy, I wish I had a Moxie to drink!”
C. “I can reuse that bottle as a vase for some flowers.”
D. “Hey, look! It’s art!”
Count the number of times you answered D. Check your score below:
0–1: You are not a Dadaist. You like order and rational thought. Good for you!
2–4: Mostly, you like to follow the straight and narrow, but every once in a while you take a walk on the Dada side.
5–7: Yep, you are definitely in training to become a Dadaist.
8–10: Proceed directly to the last house on 2½ Street. Lena is waiting for you, because you are definitely a Dadaist and nothing but trouble!
Curious about the poems quoted in question 2?
A. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
B. Walt Whitman, “O Captain! My Captain!”
C. Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”
D. Jacqueline Davies, untitled
#5: MAGGIE’S LIST OF FAMOUS MARGARETS
“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, historian, 1976
Maggie would definitely agree with those words. Who wants to behave when getting into trouble leads to all kinds of history-making results? Here’s a list of a few Margarets who reached for the stars and broke all sorts of barriers!
MARGARET BROWN (1867–1932), PHILANTHROPIST, ACTIVIST
“The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” as she became known, survived the 1912 Titanic disaster, earning a reputation for bravery and strength as she helped evacuate many passengers before climbing into a lifeboat herself. Later in her life, she continued to be a force of nature, educating children, promoting workers’ and women’s rights, and rebuilding areas in France devastated by World War I.
MARGARET MEAD (1901–1978), ANTHROPOLOGIST
In 1925, Margaret Mead blazed a path for female anthropologists by setting off to do fieldwork in Samoa. During her long career, she studied the cultures of many different people all over the world. She became an influential speaker and writer in the 1960s and 1970s. The following quotation is widely attributed to her: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” The Mouse would certainly agree with that.
MARGARET HAMILTON (1902–1985), ACTRESS
Schoolteacher turned witch? Yep, that’s just what this Margaret did. After working as a kindergarten teacher, Hamilton turned to acting, eventually landing the role of the Wicked Witch of the West in the classic film The Wizard of Oz. The American Film Institute named the Wicked Witch the greatest female movie villain of all time. Despite her villainous side, Hamilton remained committed to education throughout her life and served as both a school board member and a Sunday school teacher.
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE (1904–1971), PHOTOGRAPHER
This Margaret liked to be first. She was the first foreigner allowed to enter the Soviet Union to photograph its industry. She was the first American woman to be a war photojournalist. And she was the first woman to have her photographs appear in Life magazine. In fact, she provided the cover photo for the magazine’s debut issue in November 1936. As a photographer, Margaret was fearless in her attempts to get the best shot: She would climb to terrifying heights, squeeze herself into tight spaces, creep out on precarious riggings, and travel all over the world. Her photos were artistic, powerful, and one of a kind.
MARGARET WISE BROWN (1910–1952), CHILDREN’S AUTHOR
Known by the nickname “Brownie,” Margaret Wise Brown published over one hundred children’s books, including Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Deceptively simple and seemingly offhand, her text had a way of speaking directly to children in language they understood. Never preachy, often funny and offbeat, many of her books remain classics more than half a century after they were first published.
MARGARET WALKER (1915–1998), POET
Margaret Walker’s first published book of poetry, For My People, blew everyone’s socks off. She was just twenty-seven when the book won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, making her the first black woman in American literary history to win a prestigious national competition. For thirty years she taught literature, and toward the end of her career, she wrote Jubilee, which the Washington Post called “the first truly historical black American novel.”
MARGARET THATCHER (1925–2013), PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN
Born the daughter of a grocer in England in 1925, Margaret Thatcher rose through the ranks of British politics to become the longest-serving British prime minister of the twentieth century and the first woman ever to hold that office. She was both wildly popular and equally unpopular during her tenure, but through it all, she was a tough leader and a strong negotiator, earning her the nickname “the Iron Lady.”
MARGARET COURT (B. 1942), TENNIS CHAMPION
Ranked number one in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association for seven years, Margaret Court dominated tennis in the 1960s and 1970s. She was the first woman since the open era to win a singles Grand Slam (which is all four major tournaments in the same year). In fact, over her long career, she won twenty-four major singles tournaments titles, a record that still stands.
MARGARET RHEA SEDDON (B. 1947), PHYSICIAN, ASTRONAUT
Margaret Rhea Seddon was one of the first six women who entered the NASA astronaut program in 1978. She flew on the space shuttle three times, as both a mission specialist and a payload commander. Seddon, now retired from NASA, spent a total of thirty days, two hours, and twenty-one minutes in space. Very cool.
MARGARET CHO (B. 1968), COMEDIAN
Stand-up comedy is definitely a place for breaking rules, and Margaret Cho does just that—while making people laugh. Born in San Francisco into a Korean family, Cho was bullied as a child. “I was hurt because I was different, and so sharing my experience . . . heals others when they hear it—those who are suffering right now.” Her comedy focuses on social and political issues, in particular race, and she has won many awards for her work on behalf of women, Asians, and the LGBT community.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paula Swift Photography
JACQUELINE DAVIES is the award-winning author of many books for young readers, including the acclaimed Lemonade War series. She’s a well-behaved adult now, but when she was a child she would occasionally get into trouble. Jackie lives in a small town twelve miles outside Boston, Massachusetts.
www.jacquelinedavies.net
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY JACQUELINE DAVIES
The Lemonade War
The Lemonade Crime
The Bell Bandit
The Candy Smash
The Magic Trap
Where the Ground Meets the Sky
Lost
The Boy Who Drew Birds
The Night Is Singing
The House Takes a Vacation
Tricking the Tallyman
Panda Pants
CREDITS
Cover art © 2016 by Mary Kate McDevitt
Cover design by Katie Fitch
COPYRIGHT
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
NOTHING BUT TROUBLE. Copyright © 2016 by Jacqueline Davies and HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read th
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www.harpercollinschildrens.com
ISBN 978-0-06-236988-8
EPub Edition © October 2016 ISBN 9780062369901
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FIRST EDITION
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Nothing but Trouble Page 19
