This smart, humorous tale should inspire girls to dream big, experiment, and problem-solve through challenges.
In this follow-up to Best Babysitters Ever (2019), Malia, Bree, and Dot need money to go see their favorite pop star in concert. Problem is, these middle schoolers don’t have time to increase their babysitting service hours to earn it.
Malia is forced into an internship with her evil older sister and an even more demanding boss. Bree has just adopted a ferocious cat that she has to watch at all times to prevent it from destroying the entire house. Dot has to get ready for the big science fair. To solve their concert fundraising problem, Malia comes up with the idea to subcontract to “satellite” sitters who can babysit in their place while paying them a percentage. After training their new recruits, the girls soon realize it’s more complicated than they imagined. With third-person perspective shifting chapter by chapter, the girls struggle with their responsibilities while slowly regretting their decision as they discover that the satellite sitters threaten to replace their bosses in the hearts of their charges. With lessons smoothly woven into the storytelling—Bree’s cat’s psychotherapist has advice that applies amazingly well to humans, for instance—the narrative neatly balances humor and wisdom. The book’s cover shows Malia to be black, Dot to be white, and Bree to have light brown skin and long, dark hair.
This smart, humorous tale should inspire girls to dream big, experiment, and problem-solve through challenges. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-85090-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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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