Miss Alaineus, by Debra Frasier, is the hilarious story of a girl named Sage who is sick and misses a few days of school. Sage is a smart girl and often writes her own definitions for her vocabulary words instead of looking them up. She gets her vocabulary words from her friend while she is out and writes her own definition of Miss Alaineus - and even illustrates it for extra points!  The hilarity ensues when Sage realizes the word was actually miscellaneous and her classmates will not let her live her mistake down.  All ends well, though, as Sage and her mom create a clever costume to illustrate miscellaneous and she wins the fifth grade vocabulary parade.

Miss Alaineus is a great book to read to any level elementary class or upper elementary could read it independently. It is the perfect lead-in to the concept of a vocabulary parade, which many schools are using as an alternative to Halloween costumes in the fall. Children choose a word from a provided list of vocabulary and wear a costume that illustrates the word the on the chosen day, when they parade throughtout the school.