Chris Rylander

Sixth-graders Mac and Vince operate a business charging schoolmates for protection from bullies and for help to negotiate conflicts peacefully, with amazing challenges and results.

The Fourth Stall

Lynn Braden

Very well written. The voice of the main character comes through loud and clear. Mac runs his business out of the fourth stall in the bathroom. For a fee, he will solve your problems until a character named Staples arrives and threatens to end not only Mac's business but also life as he has known it. This is a great read-aloud book because Mac's voice comes through so loudly and clearly. The humor brings this story to life.

The life of crime is good.Mac has taken down legendary high school crime boss Staples, business has been booming, and Mac and Vince are getting ready for middle school baseball tryouts. But this can’t last. Mac has always tried to keep his friends close and his enemies closer. But what happens when you can’t tell the difference? This dilemma walks into the fourth stall in the form of Trixie Von Parkway—an eighth grader with a mean look and an even meaner predicament. The new science teacher is terrorizing her, and she needs Mac to get him off her back. Seems simple enough, but as Mac starts to dig deeper, he finds even more trouble brewing at his school, including a new administrator bent on destroying his business, and indications that Trixie isn’t who she claims to be. In the past, the worst thing that could have happened to Mac was that he might lose a little money, maybe catch a beating. In The Fourth Stall Part II, though, there’s going to be much more on the line than that.

Eliot Hertenstein

Six-graders Mac and Vince, who operate an advice and assistance service for fellow students, face new dangers when a strict administrator is hired to clean up the school and a strange and dangerous girl asks for their help to have a teacher fired.

The Fourth Stall

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