MOTHER, MAY I? Darcy Jahns and Duanne Jahns Richmond Hill (Ont.), Scholastic Canada, 1993.157pp, paper, $3.95 ISBN 0-590-74314-7. CIP Grades 4 to 6/Ages 9 to 11 Reviewed by Adele M. Fasick. Volume 21 Number 4 1993 September Twelve-year-old Allison Curtis causes so much trouble in school with her practical jokes that her parents decide to send her to a strict Catholic girls' school. Alli finds the change just as bad as she had feared because, except for her roommate, Zaz, the girls seem determined to dislike her. Deciding that being expelled is the only way to leave the school, Alli embarks on a series of escapades, starting with slipping fake eyeballs into the dinner spaghetti. Much to Alli's dismay, the Mother Superior decides to cancel Alli's weekend leave rather than send her home. While Alli becomes more and more frantic trying to find a. way to escape from the school, the nuns worry about the failing furnace, which they cannot afford to replace. In a chaotic finale, Alli manages to use a roomful of chinchillas to rescue the convent from its financial problems. In the process, of course, she discovers that she does care about the school and begins to make friends and to fit in with the other students. This lightweight story will amuse girls who enjoy reading Gordon Korman's stories even though it doesn't reach his heights of hilarity. It is worth buying. Adele M. Fasick is a professor at the Univer­sity of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario.