The Mighty Odds

Ignatow, Amy. The Mighty Odds. Harry N Abrams,  2016.

When a school field trip turns into a bus accident, four unlikely allies all inherit strange powers. They must band together to find out how they received these powers and what they should do now that they have them.

This book is the first in a series, so there is a considerable amount of character development and backstory happening before the actual plot begins. Once the story does pick up, the action keeps it flowing right until the end, which is a cliffhanger as there is another book coming after this one. I could easily place this book in the hands of Wimpy Kid fans, especially once the sequel is out, but some reluctant readers may find it difficult to get through the all of the background bits that happen at the beginning of the book.

Recommended for: middle grade, fans of book/cartoon combinations like Wimpy Kid
Red Flags: racial teasing of a Middle Eastern boy, some "mild violence" in the form of explosions and such due to a character's special powers
Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

Read-Alikes: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, Bully Bait, Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life

Fat Boy vs. the Cheerleaders

Herbach, Geoff. Fat Boy vs the Cheerleaders. 2014

This book is a copy of Gabe's testimony after he and the other "geekers" - band geeks, chess nerds, etc. - waged war against the cheerleaders who have stolen their funding and eliminated band camp. Gabe is telling his side of the story to a lawyer, and interspersed with the tale of Gabe's arrest we find out about his family life, the teasing he puts up with at school, and his job at the donut shop. Gabe doesn't hold anything back, and his story is hilarious. Throughout the story we do get to watch Gabe take control of a life that has spun very far out of control, all the while laughing at his crazy antics.

I picked this book up about six times before I actually checked it out of the library. The cover and the title told me the book should be funny, but I was afraid I'd be disappointed in what would count as "humor." I shouldn't have worried. This book is really funny, and teens who have grown up on a diet of Diary of a Wimpy Kid will enjoy this book. I always enjoy books where the spineless protagonist eventually realizes s/he has a problem and takes control; this is one of those books. See below for other funny read-alike suggestions.

Recommended for: young adults
Red Flags: language, some minor violence, minor use of alcohol,
Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

Read-Alikes: Notes from the Midnight Driver,  Butter,  Steering Toward Normal,  Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong,  Ungifted

Steering Toward Normal

Petruck, Rebecca. Steering Toward Normal. Amulet Books, 2014.

Diggy is an 8th grader who lives in a small farming community in Minnesota. He raises steer through 4H and shows them at the State Fair, and he's hoping to have a chance to win this year. Then his world explodes when he finds out he has a half brother who moves in with him and Pop and starts taking Pop's attention away. Not only that, but Wayne also wants to enter a steer in the State Fair. How will Diggy manage to win the state fair now?

This book sounded like it should be hilarious, and being from Minnesota myself, I hoped that there would be lots of references that would make me smile and imagine the characters speaking with heavy accents. As it turned out, this book moved very, very slowly. Grass-growing slowly. Since the main character is an 8th grader, this book should appeal to middle schoolers, but I doubt that many of my middle school students would have the patience for this story. It's a good story, and with families moving away from nuclear and into a new normal, it's probably a story that needs to be told, but it has to be done in a way that will hook the readers, and this story simply did not do that.

Recommended for: tweens
Red Flags: the man who raised Dwayne is an alcoholic and frequently gets drunk or shows up drunk; the boys (and Pop) play lots of pranks on each other that occasionally involve cow poop
Overall Rating:2/5 stars

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley for the purposes of review.

Ungifted

Korman, Gordon. Ungifted. Balzer + Bray, 2012.

This book is hilarious along the lines of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and The Wednesday Wars. Donovan is an 8th grader with what the school counselor calls "poor impulse control." He does a lot of crazy things without thinking about the consequences, which is why he smacked the school's statue of Atlas with a stick, which caused the rusted bolt to fall off, which caused the globe Atlas was holding to roll down the hill into the gym, causing thousands of dollars in damage. After the incident, Donovan is accidentally sent to the district's academy for gifted students, and hilarity ensues.

This book would make an excellent read aloud book for a class. The characters are likable and entertaining, and there are enough of Donovan's hijinx sprinkled throughout the book to keep even a reluctant reader interested. I am going to book talk this one to my students, and I'm hoping to get the Wimpy Kid fans interested, which might help them to expand their palette.

Recommended for: tweens, middle grade
Red Flags: a couple of minor violent scenes involving a school dance where a fight breaks out as well as a robotics competition where a child smashes a chair onto a robot's head.
Overall Rating: 5/5 stars

Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue

Angleberger, Tom. Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue: An Origami Yoda Book. Harry N. Abrams, 2014.

The gang at McQuarrie Middle School is still fighting FunTime, the standardized test prep that all students are forced to endure instead of going to elective classes. They aren't having much success, until they are rescued by a very unusual hero.

This is a great addition to the Origami Yoda series. These books continue to be popular among my students, especially those who are fans of the Dork Diaries and Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

Recommended for: middle grade, tweens
Red Flags: none
Overall Rating: 5/5 stars

Swim the Fly

Calame, Don. Swim the Fly. Candlewick, 2009.

Matt and his buddies have a goal each summer. This summer their goal is to see a naked woman. In addition, Matt wants to impress Kelly, a new girl on his swim team, so he's volunteered to swim the butterfly, a feat he's never imagined he could do (and still doesn't). Will the boys accomplish their goal by the end of the summer?

I didn't think I would like this book, but it ended up being fairly entertaining. The boys have all kinds of crazy hijinx in their attempt to see a naked girl, and Matt's classes with Ulf - a man who survived a boating accident by treading water for seven days - are hilarious. I would have loved to learn more about Ulf and to have him appear more often in the story, but the story was still much better than I expected from a summer tale of horny boys.

Recommended for: young adults
Red Flags: bathroom humor, language, alcohol, drug use, and the fact that three horny boys are trying to see a naked woman
Overall Rating: 3/5 stars

Zombie Baseball Beatdown

Bacigalupi, Paolo. Zombie Baseball Beatdown. Little, Brown BFYR, 2013.

Rabi and his friends love baseball. Their parents work at a meat processing plant. The plant uses weird chemicals in their cows, which then causes people to become zombies, and also the cows become zombies. The boys then use their baseball skills to save the day.

This particular book took a while to get interesting. With a fairly simple plot, the story itself is probably only enjoyable as an audiobook, when the listener gets to hear zombie cows mooing. One of the boys attaches a still-"living" zombie cow head to a car as some sort of odd, mooing hood ornament. I have some students who would enjoy this book, but it takes so long to get weirdly interesting that many of them would abandon the book before it had a chance to hook them.

Recommended for: young adults, tweens
Red Flags: zombie violence
Overall Rating: 3/5 stars

William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope

Doescher, Ian. William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope. Quirk Books, 2013.

Imagine that William Shakespeare wrote the Star Wars epic in his classic poetic style. Now, insert some nods to other Shakespeare plays combined with puns related to the Star Wars universe. What you get is this book - a combination of a well-known story and a writing style that can't be matched. There isn't anything else quite like this. If I were still teaching high school English, I would definitely use this book as a tie-in during a Shakespeare unit. The familiar story makes Shakespeare's beautiful language all that more accessible for teens.

Recommended for: teens, adults, Star Wars fans
Red Flags: none
Overall Rating: 5/5 stars

The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett

Angleberger, Tom. The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett. Amulet Books, 2013.

Dwight is back at McQuarrie Middle School, but things are not well. In an effort to raise standardized test scores, the school has decided to do away with all electives and extra-curriculars and to replace them with "fun" time where the kids learn the FUNdamentals of passing the tests. The kids are not happy, the teachers are not happy, and no one knows what to do, until they ask for some help from Origami Yoda. The kids begin to fight back against the tests, but it isn't until Jabba the Puppett makes an appearance that they are able to truly battle "fun" time!

This book is a great next installment in the Origami Yoda series. Like the rest of the series, I can't keep it on my shelf. My only complaint is that it has a cliffhanger ending, and I don't like cliffhangers when I don't know when I'll be able to find out the rest of the story. Other than that, this is an excellent book.

Recommended for: middle grade, tweens
Red Flags: none
Overall Rating: 5/5 stars

The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee

Angleberger, Tom. The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee. Amulet Books, 2012.

Dwight has been suspended, so the kids are struggling to survive without Origami Yoda's advice. Fortunately, they are rescued by the Fortune Wookiee, who is able to help them come up with a plan to rescue Dwight from his new school and bring him back!

This book is just as adorable and delightful as the previous two in the series. This series is very, very popular in my library, not only with my Star Wars fans, but also with kids who have enjoyed the Wimpy Kid series.

Recommended for: middle grade, tweens, fans of humorous books like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
Red Flags: none
Overall Rating: 5/5 stars

Beauty Queens

Bray, Libba. Beauty Queens. Scholastic Press, 2011.

The contestants of the Miss Teen Dream contest are flying to an exotic location for part of the competition when their plane crash lands on an island.  The survivors must band together and try to create shelter and find food while they wait to be rescued.  But when a secret plot is uncovered, the girls have to decide what's truly important to them.

Wow.  This is a really, really strange book.  As long as you are willing to suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the absurdity of the story, this book is a lot of fun.  It mocks reality TV, beauty pageants, commercialism, political issues, etc. etc.  There is a character named Momo B. Chacha who is the ruler of his own country.  Momo keeps a taxidermied Lemur - General Goodtimes - on his shoulder and asks his advice periodically.  One of the contestants has an airline tray lodged in her head throughout the entire book.  Pirates land on the island, but they're rock star pirates.  It just keeps getting weirder and weirder, but it's hilarious and well worth the trip.

I appreciated the strong feminist message in this book, as well as the acknowledgement of LGBTQIA issues as well as persons with disabilities.  I was glad that the girls decided they did not need to just wait for someone to come rescue them.  I was also glad there was a transgender character in this book, but that the entire book wasn't about that person coming out as trans.  She just was, and more importantly, she was a contestant in a beauty pageant, too.

My only caveat: this book is long.  Ridiculously so.  The story is funny, and I wanted to see how it'd turn out, so I stuck with it, but I could see teens putting the book down when it just drags on too long.    However, this book definitely belongs in the library's collection.

Recommended for: adults and teens who enjoy satire, strong readers, people who enjoy mocking reality TV and beauty pageants

Red Flags: mild violence, mild language, alcohol use (rum, because we're on an island with pirates), some pretty explicit sexual scenes

Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

52 Reasons to Hate My Father

Brody, Jessica. 52 Reasons to Hate My Father. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2012.

Lexington Larrabee is a spoiled brat. Her family is beyond rich, and Lexi stands to inherit $25 million dollars the day she turns 18. However, her father has been less than impressed with her behavior, so he gives her a task to complete before she receives her trust fund: for one year she will work 52 low-paying jobs, and she must complete every one of them in order to get her money.

I didn't expect to like this book. I usually hate stories about spoiled brats, and the main character in this story could fit right in with the Gossip Girls. But she changes, and that's what makes this story worth reading. Her super-rich, super-busy, always absent father changes, too. This book is a quick, enjoyable read and was definitely worth the time I spent on it.

The Guinea Pig Diaries

Jacobs, A.J. The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009.

I encountered Jacobs's work at a bookstore several years ago.  He had embarked on a year-long experiment where he attempted to follow every single law and rule written in the Bible. The cover of his book caught my eye, and I flipped through it, but decided not to read it.  My guess is that his treatment of God's Word was less than reverent, and I won't stop anyone else from reading about his experiences, but I didn't think that book was for me.

This book, however, details several mini-experiments where Jacobs attempted to do certain things for thirty days.  He spent one month outsourcing his life.  He spent one month living by the rules of radical honesty. He attempts to follow George Washington's rules for life.  Each chapter, each experiment, is different from the one before and all are wacky and odd. 

I enjoyed reading this book. Jacobs has an entertaining writing style and his experiments were mostly harmless. I do like the fact that he is willing to subject himself to all of these experiments in order to write about them, rather than asking someone else to be the guinea pig.