A birthday slumber party becomes the undoing of a clique when one of the guests is abducted. Gray is a member of the Lucky Seven, a poisonous preteen clique presided over by Martha, who clearly (and viciously) enjoys the power accorded her by her popularity. Gray’s membership—indeed, everyone’s—depends on Martha’s whim. The slumber party has started off badly for Gray, though, as her mother, distracted by chemotherapy, has packed the wrong sleeping bag. When a confused woman appears at the birthday party, Gray is happy to convince herself that she is an aide sent to fetch her home and escapes the party—only to be taken on a terrifying ride to the woman’s house, from which she has no immediate means of escape. Meanwhile, at the party, Gray’s absence occasions a subtle but cataclysmic shift in the forces that hold the clique together; Martha is top dog no more. Shifting perspectives effectively capture the emotions and motivations of key members of the Lucky Seven, allowing the reader to examine the group’s dynamics. Griffin has a keen eye for the cruelty of the middle-schooler, but this fails where Amandine (2001) succeeded, due to its split narrative. When Gray leaves the party, the story splits into two pieces—Gray’s own bizarre adventure, and the power struggle within the clique—and Gray’s own development as an individual is not sufficiently paralleled by the development of the rest of the group to make the counterpoint between the two stories work. For a more effective dissection of the nature of cliques, try Amy Goldman Koss’s The Girls (2000). (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-23782-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy.
Inventively tweaking a popular premise, Jensen pits two Incredibles-style families with superpowers against each other—until a new challenge rises to unite them.
The Johnsons invariably spit at the mere mention of their hated rivals, the Baileys. Likewise, all Baileys habitually shake their fists when referring to the Johnsons. Having long looked forward to getting a superpower so that he too can battle his clan’s nemeses, Rafter Bailey is devastated when, instead of being able to fly or something else cool, he acquires the “power” to strike a match on soft polyester. But when hated classmate Juanita Johnson turns up newly endowed with a similarly bogus power and, against all family tradition, they compare notes, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on. Both families regard themselves as the heroes and their rivals as the villains. Someone has been inciting them to fight each other. Worse yet, that someone has apparently developed a device that turns real superpowers into silly ones. Teaching themselves on the fly how to get past their prejudice and work together, Rafter, his little brother, Benny, and Juanita follow a well-laid-out chain of clues and deductions to the climactic discovery of a third, genuinely nefarious family, the Joneses, and a fiendishly clever scheme to dispose of all the Baileys and Johnsons at once. Can they carry the day?
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-220961-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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