Peters (How Do You Spell GEEK?, 1996, etc.) chronicles the trials and triumphs of a group of misfits, who call themselves the Snob Squad and take on the Neon Nikes, sixth grade’s ruling clique. Overweight Jenny, physically challenged Prairie Cactus, sixth-grade bad girl Max, and whiny, overprotected Lydia make an unlikely relay-race team. But united in their opposition to the popular Neon Nikes, a team led by the principal’s snotty daughter, Ashley Krupps, they band together as the Snob Squad, and achieve an uneasy camaraderie. As they get to know each other better (“It was weird. The feel of other people, the sounds of group chewing”), their fragile alliance blossoms into real friendship. In the meantime, worried about her daughter’s weight, dropping grades, and social isolation, Jenny’s mother wants to take her to a psychologist; Jenny attempts to get the appointment canceled, but by the time she makes the dreaded visit, she has, with the help of her new friends, pretty much figured things out on her own. Between bites of every kind of candy imaginable, Jenny provides a glib, fast-paced first-person narration, which is peppered with verbal repartee and humorous asides about her classmates. Peters’s writing is smooth and funny page to page, which makes this an enjoyable read, despite some far-fetched plot developments. A great jacket painting of the four girls will have this jumping off the shelves. (Fiction. 8-12)
