Beasley, Kate. Gertie’s Leap To Greatness.

Beasley, Kate.  Gertie’s Leap To Greatness.  Macmillan/Farrar Strauss  2016  249p            $16.99 ISBN 978-0-374-30261-0      elem/ms  Conflict  E-BN  

Gertie is a fifth-grade girl on a mission. She must prove to her mother, who abandoned her years ago, that she is the greatest fifth-grader on the planet, and therefore change mom’s mind about leaving town with her new husband and family. Gertie has come up with missions before, and they have never failed. But this time, it seems that things keep going wrong for her. First of all, there is the new girl, Mary Sue, who seems to dislike Gertie and turns the other kids against her. Secondly, there is Mary Sue’s mother, who turns all the other kids against Gertie’s dad, who works on an oil rig. Even Gertie’s best friend Jean abandons her. In the face of all these challenges, how is Gertie ever going to prove to her mother that she is the greatest fifth-grader in the world?

The book includes humor and pathos, and is a great character study. The plot hums along and delves deeply into Gertie’s innermost feelings, making her one of the most sympathetic characters I have encountered in children’s fiction lately. There are wonderful line drawings by Jillian Tamaki that capture the feelings, the characters, and the humor perfectly.                 

Summary: Gertie is a fifth-grade girl on a mission. She must make her mother, who abandoned her, realize just how special she is, and change her mind about loving Gertie. But along the way, Gertie encounters many challenges.         

Family-Fiction, School-Fiction, Abandonment-Fiction                                             —Carol Kennedy

Standiford, Natalie. The Only Girl in School.

Standiford, Natalie.  The Only Girl in School.  Scholastic Press  2016  214p  $16.99  ISBN 978-0-545-82996-0  ms  Realistic fiction  VG

Claire is miserable.  She is now the only girl in her entire school on Foyes Island in the Chesapeake Bay, and she is suffering mightily.  Not only has her best friend moved to California, her other best friend Henry has succumbed to the threats of the class bully and won’t talk to her or hang out with her.  She is ignored or belittled by her classmates and must fight for her place on the soccer team and in sailing races.  The engaging story is told through a series of letters between Claire and her best friend Bess, complete with drawings of her schoolmates.  As the school year progresses, Claire’s challenges continue to mount.  She is, however, a very determined girl and won’t let anything stand in her way.  The plot is spiced with dramatic if slightly unrealistic anecdotes about Claire’s ongoing battle with the boys and her discovery of ghostly treasure.  It provides an absorbing adventure.     

Summary: Claire is now the only girl in her entire school on Foyes Island in the Chesapeake Bay, and she is suffering mightily.  Not only has her best friend moved to California, her other best friend Henry has succumbed to the threats of the class bully and won’t talk to her or hang out with her.

School-Fiction, Bullying-Fiction                      --Susan Ogintz

Bildner, Phil. A Whole New Ballgame.

Bildner, Phil.  A Whole New Ballgame.     Macmillan/Farrar Strauss      2015  243p  $15.99  ISBN 978-0-374-30130-9      elem/ms     Realistic Fiction  E-BN  

If someone was looking for the absolutely all-inclusive book for grades 4-5, this is it.  The new teacher is completely unconventional.  The students represent multiple nationalities and races.  One has autism and one is in a wheelchair.  But it all works.  Throw in basketball practices and games, and interfering parents, and that sums up this title.
 

The banter among the students sounds true.  Their interests and reactions are completely real.  The unconventional teacher is a bit way out there, but he is effective.  The basketball lingo is sometimes beyond this reviewer, but the boys who are into basketball will gobble it up.  The students learn how to accept differences and work with them, and they score very well on standardized tests due to the enthusiasm and interest the teacher had instilled in them.  It is great to see innovative, creative teaching validated.
 

Boys who are into basketball in grades 4-6 will love this book.  

Summary: A unconventional teaching style, basketball, autism, and life in a wheelchair: it’s all in this title written for boys in grade 4-5.           

Basketball-Fiction, School-Fiction, Autism-Fiction          --Joan Theal

Cold Calls.

Benoit, Charles.  Cold Calls.  Houghton Mifflin/Clarion     2014  278p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-547-23950-4      hs      Mystery/Detective  VG-BN     

Eric, Shelly, and Fatima all have secrets.  But they don’t share the same secret, even though they are all being blackmailed into bullying specifically targeted schoolmates by a mysterious caller who holds these secrets over their heads.  The three meet while on suspension from school and attend the same bullying intervention program.  They team up to discover the anonymous caller who threatens them before their personal pasts are exposed.

Part thriller and part mystery, Cold Calls explores the issues of bullying, privacy, and responsibility.  The emphasis is placed on trying to figure out who the blackmailer is, rather than on the acts that the blackmailer demands.  But each of the characters has a destructive secret which until now they had successfully kept under wraps.  Readers will be fascinated by “good” students who are pressured into role reversals to act as bullies in order to protect their secrets. 

Topical and up-to-the-moment, the team uses plausible resources to track their antagonist, while stringing the reader along without a quick reveal.  Fast-paced and engaging, the novel is open-ended enough to warrant a sequel.            

Summary: While on suspension, Shelly, Eric, and Fatima, who have nothing else in common, try to identify and stop the person who blackmailed each of them by phone to perform very specific acts of bullying at their high schools. “I know your secret.”

Bullying-Fiction, School-Fiction                            --Hilary Welliver

Straight Punch.

Polak, Monique.  Straight Punch.  Orca    2014  249p  $12.95  ISBN 978-1-4598-0391-6  ms/hs     High/Low, Conflict      VG

Tessa McPhail tags to express herself, but graffiti is illegal, and after she is caught too many times she is sent to New Directions, an unusual alternative school on Montreal’s bad side.  At New Directions, students spend half the day learning to box in order to learn to channel their aggression in a controlled and disciplined manner.  At first this is very difficult for Tessa, who was caught in a hockey riot several years back and traumatized by the violence.  Gradually, however, with the support of her eclectic and troubled classmates, including a fellow tagger who goes by the moniker Pretty Boy, she gains more confidence in herself and learns to enjoy the boxing lessons.  This realization about boxing, however, comes just in time for everything and everyone in Tessa’s life to turn against New Directions: her boyfriend doesn’t want her there, her mother worries about her being there, and the neighborhood the school is in wants to see it closed down because it is judged that the students may introduce a criminal element to the neighborhood.  Tessa’s struggles are interesting, but the supporting characters are also intriguing: flamboyant Pretty Boy’s older brothers used him to break and enter, Jasmine’s aunt is gambling away the inheritance left her by her parents, Randy has a learning disability, Whisky is an alcoholic, and Di is pregnant.  The characters are very real, and readers will find the story engaging.  They may also be inspired to take up boxing.              

School-Fiction, Self-Esteem-Fiction       --Bethany Geleskie