Ms. Hempel Chronicles (2008)

The heroine of Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's smart, fizzy novel, Ms. Hempel Chronicles is Ms. Beatrice Hempel, a middle school teacher who chaperones field trips, endures dull assemblies, and reads endless topic sentences. Tedious? Not at all. Though she has a sexually adventurous fiancé and a drunken flirtation with a fellow teacher, Ms. Hempel's most fascinating relationships are with her students, at that age ''when they were most purely themselves.'' And while the book skates on the charming surface of life, Bynum also manages to suggest the sobering depths below. A-