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gmcuriousgeorge's review against another edition
4.0
Fun book, packed with facts about U.S. presidents and recipes along the way.
mariahistryingtoread's review against another edition
3.0
What started out as a light, airy read became a frustrating, somewhat dull endeavor. The bulk of the book is Brianna curtailing new girl Jasmine Moons' plans to be class president.
(Note: Class president has actually been bumped up to school president starting this year but I'm still going to call it class president because that's what the book calls it throughout. I just wanted to clarify.)
There were a few red flags from the beginning that I initially was going to dismiss as my personal preference butting up against the authors' tastes. Eventually I started to feel that it was not only me, but issues that objectively mar the intent of the novel.
First off, Jasmine Moon is the mean girl of your 5th grade nightmares. She knows exactly how to play the game; act nasty in private, pretend you're a sweet girl who never meant anybody any harm in public. I love her as an antagonist. She serves her purpose in the book perfectly.
Her little routine drives Brianna mad, of course, because she's the only one who can see it.
When she enlists Brianna's own friend for her campaign is where I started to see cracks. First off, the whole process seems dumb. You have to elect your team in front of everybody and Jasmine picks Bex first. The teacher guilts Bex into staying on the team since Jasmine is new.
How do you just pick literally anyone in the class to help out? There was no volunteer system set up or sign up sheet. It's just 'I want you to help so you have to'. This is certainly a nit-pick but it did put my guard up because it was so easy to fix by just having the teacher privately ask Bex to join Jasmine's team because Jasmine requested it instead. Teacher guilt + Jasmine manipulation still in play.
This is all apart of Brianna's ire towards Jasmine. She gets away with things because she puts on this facade of kindness. It drives me crazy that the book explicitly sets this up as what is definitely going on then spends most of the book lambasting her for it.
Towards the middle of the book her friends start telling Brianna she's become obsessed with winning the election. They accuse her of not being concerned with the job itself but the act of holding the position. She only wants to win to beat Jasmine.
This is complete garbage for two reasons.
One, while being class president is her dream, Brianna has done a lot more than simply covet it. She has a whole plan she spent the entire summer prepping for involving ideas for field trips, budgeting, how to improve the school. If anyone has proven that they care about doing a good job it's Brianna. Prepared, well equipped people can be equally as desperate to win as the unprepared.
Two, what's wrong with wanting so badly to beat Jasmine Moon? Jasmine Moon is a jerk who is not above lying and cheating to win the election. I'd be determined to beat her too. I hated that Brianna was tacitly being shamed for 'wanting it too much'. The book is supposed to be celebrating an ambitious, self-assured little budding entrepreneur. Yet it simultaneously punishes Brianna in the narrative for that same conviction it wants praise for adding. Does Brianna make a mistake because her drive for the win is overshadowing everything else? Yes, but that's totally separate from her desire to beat Jasmine specifically and her big mistake takes too long to unfold for me to feel like she'd compromised herself. Admittedly, towards the end Brianna is specifically commended for her drive by an authority figure she looks up to. However, it rang hollow because the book spends a majority of the time implicitly penalizing her for it.
Related to two, the pacing is off. Brianna really does not do all that much. So when her friends Sara and Lauren confronted her about hanging out with the skeevy Weasel I was confused because up until that point Brianna hadn’t done anything other than air her frustrations. The events that reflect poorly on Brianna mostly occur in the latter half of the book making for a rather uneven progression.
It also had the unfortunate effect of making me think less of her friends for being annoyed at Brianna when she had a legitimate grievance against Jasmine.
Criticism aside, I did not hate the book. I like that Brianna is a confident, compassionate Black girl who not only knows what she wants, she puts in the work to make it so. She screws up, but when push comes to shove she takes accountability for her actions. She’s the bigger person even when the other person doesn’t deserve it because it’s important to her to not compromise her integrity. I think she’s a wonderful role model for other Black girls to read about and relate to. It’s kind of nice to read about a situation where a girl is striving for success that isn’t social media based.
It’s not bad to want fame or stardom and I understand why it’s a popular theme in middle grade books especially as the 2010s progressed. I grew up in the murky transitional period in regards to Internet culture so the fact that it can be a full time job is only a relatively recent concept for me. Also, while I’m not against social media I do believe that parents need to be a lot more critical about their kids’ usage. As such I think that it’s important to have books that don’t completely feed into its prevalence in their lives. Kids can dream all they want and it’s good for them to do so. I don’t want their dreams to be dashed too soon in the name of reality. But, I think that there are a lot of downsides to social media - for all ages - that we have only begun to see in the last few years or so and it’s good to model what alternative career paths or ambitions can look like. I appreciate Winston for offering another equally as valid option.
I think this is more suitable for the lower half of middle grade. It’s a bit simplistic in terms of writing style and character wise the kids can sometimes read as a bit younger than they are - which is saying something considering how young the kids are in the first place. It’s not bad, it just doesn’t stand out to me. If you’re looking for something quick and competent, then you’ve come to the right place.
(Note: Class president has actually been bumped up to school president starting this year but I'm still going to call it class president because that's what the book calls it throughout. I just wanted to clarify.)
There were a few red flags from the beginning that I initially was going to dismiss as my personal preference butting up against the authors' tastes. Eventually I started to feel that it was not only me, but issues that objectively mar the intent of the novel.
First off, Jasmine Moon is the mean girl of your 5th grade nightmares. She knows exactly how to play the game; act nasty in private, pretend you're a sweet girl who never meant anybody any harm in public. I love her as an antagonist. She serves her purpose in the book perfectly.
Her little routine drives Brianna mad, of course, because she's the only one who can see it.
When she enlists Brianna's own friend for her campaign is where I started to see cracks. First off, the whole process seems dumb. You have to elect your team in front of everybody and Jasmine picks Bex first. The teacher guilts Bex into staying on the team since Jasmine is new.
How do you just pick literally anyone in the class to help out? There was no volunteer system set up or sign up sheet. It's just 'I want you to help so you have to'. This is certainly a nit-pick but it did put my guard up because it was so easy to fix by just having the teacher privately ask Bex to join Jasmine's team because Jasmine requested it instead. Teacher guilt + Jasmine manipulation still in play.
This is all apart of Brianna's ire towards Jasmine. She gets away with things because she puts on this facade of kindness. It drives me crazy that the book explicitly sets this up as what is definitely going on then spends most of the book lambasting her for it.
Towards the middle of the book her friends start telling Brianna she's become obsessed with winning the election. They accuse her of not being concerned with the job itself but the act of holding the position. She only wants to win to beat Jasmine.
This is complete garbage for two reasons.
One, while being class president is her dream, Brianna has done a lot more than simply covet it. She has a whole plan she spent the entire summer prepping for involving ideas for field trips, budgeting, how to improve the school. If anyone has proven that they care about doing a good job it's Brianna. Prepared, well equipped people can be equally as desperate to win as the unprepared.
Two, what's wrong with wanting so badly to beat Jasmine Moon? Jasmine Moon is a jerk who is not above lying and cheating to win the election. I'd be determined to beat her too. I hated that Brianna was tacitly being shamed for 'wanting it too much'. The book is supposed to be celebrating an ambitious, self-assured little budding entrepreneur. Yet it simultaneously punishes Brianna in the narrative for that same conviction it wants praise for adding. Does Brianna make a mistake because her drive for the win is overshadowing everything else? Yes, but that's totally separate from her desire to beat Jasmine specifically and her big mistake takes too long to unfold for me to feel like she'd compromised herself. Admittedly, towards the end Brianna is specifically commended for her drive by an authority figure she looks up to. However, it rang hollow because the book spends a majority of the time implicitly penalizing her for it.
Related to two, the pacing is off. Brianna really does not do all that much. So when her friends Sara and Lauren confronted her about hanging out with the skeevy Weasel I was confused because up until that point Brianna hadn’t done anything other than air her frustrations. The events that reflect poorly on Brianna mostly occur in the latter half of the book making for a rather uneven progression.
It also had the unfortunate effect of making me think less of her friends for being annoyed at Brianna when she had a legitimate grievance against Jasmine.
Criticism aside, I did not hate the book. I like that Brianna is a confident, compassionate Black girl who not only knows what she wants, she puts in the work to make it so. She screws up, but when push comes to shove she takes accountability for her actions. She’s the bigger person even when the other person doesn’t deserve it because it’s important to her to not compromise her integrity. I think she’s a wonderful role model for other Black girls to read about and relate to. It’s kind of nice to read about a situation where a girl is striving for success that isn’t social media based.
It’s not bad to want fame or stardom and I understand why it’s a popular theme in middle grade books especially as the 2010s progressed. I grew up in the murky transitional period in regards to Internet culture so the fact that it can be a full time job is only a relatively recent concept for me. Also, while I’m not against social media I do believe that parents need to be a lot more critical about their kids’ usage. As such I think that it’s important to have books that don’t completely feed into its prevalence in their lives. Kids can dream all they want and it’s good for them to do so. I don’t want their dreams to be dashed too soon in the name of reality. But, I think that there are a lot of downsides to social media - for all ages - that we have only begun to see in the last few years or so and it’s good to model what alternative career paths or ambitions can look like. I appreciate Winston for offering another equally as valid option.
I think this is more suitable for the lower half of middle grade. It’s a bit simplistic in terms of writing style and character wise the kids can sometimes read as a bit younger than they are - which is saying something considering how young the kids are in the first place. It’s not bad, it just doesn’t stand out to me. If you’re looking for something quick and competent, then you’ve come to the right place.
aposthuma's review against another edition
3.0
Sometimes you just need a solid middle grade book. This one was fine, but it was nothing profound. Easy comfort read but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.
listen_learn's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars
I loved the title chapters in this book and the character arc of the MC was very believable. I think it should be an easy sell to my fifth graders - a lot of them like baking and can probably relate to the light drama of this tale.
I loved the title chapters in this book and the character arc of the MC was very believable. I think it should be an easy sell to my fifth graders - a lot of them like baking and can probably relate to the light drama of this tale.
saidtheraina's review against another edition
4.0
Took this out to the elementary schools in May/June 2016.
Just wanna add my evidence - you know that myth that nobody wants to read a book with a black person on the cover? Totally totally wrong. I let the kids pick out which books I talk about, and this one was picked a lot. Often by mirror kids, but not always.
I started out by asking the kids what job they wanted to have when they grow up, and this was one of my favorite parts of outreach visits this season. I would go around the entire room of kids if I could. I love looking at them and imagining them as grown-up vets, or professional basketball players, or youtubers, or whatever.
I rushed reading and promoting this book so that I could feature it during a presidential election year.
I wasn't completely charmed by it, or sucked in - Brianna's drama is very kid-level, and as a grown-up, I saw logical fallacies a few times. I'm trying to decide if it's smart or lazy that the cupcake recipes included all require a cake-mix (they sound delicious anyway). But it is what it's trying to be. I like that it's one of the longest books I took out. It's didactic, yes, but pretty much always in a good way.
Just wanna add my evidence - you know that myth that nobody wants to read a book with a black person on the cover? Totally totally wrong. I let the kids pick out which books I talk about, and this one was picked a lot. Often by mirror kids, but not always.
I started out by asking the kids what job they wanted to have when they grow up, and this was one of my favorite parts of outreach visits this season. I would go around the entire room of kids if I could. I love looking at them and imagining them as grown-up vets, or professional basketball players, or youtubers, or whatever.
I rushed reading and promoting this book so that I could feature it during a presidential election year.
I wasn't completely charmed by it, or sucked in - Brianna's drama is very kid-level, and as a grown-up, I saw logical fallacies a few times. I'm trying to decide if it's smart or lazy that the cupcake recipes included all require a cake-mix (they sound delicious anyway). But it is what it's trying to be. I like that it's one of the longest books I took out. It's didactic, yes, but pretty much always in a good way.
abbymoore06's review against another edition
4.0
What a cute, smart book! To me, this read like a classic Judy Blume-esque novel but with so many modern twists. I absolutely loved the incorporation of American historical facts, as well as the fun U.S. Presidential trivia. Perfect reading for 5th grade U.S. History curriculum ties. The author also pulls in some great math elements through the investments, savings, etc. And, I can't overlook those delicious recipes sprinkled throughout! Above all though, I loved the lessons about integrity, trust, and friendship. This would be an excellent read aloud for grades 4+ and an awesome book to read and discuss with your own kiddos at home!
janahain's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars. Listened to the audiobook with the kids. It has a lot of good lessons for being a good person.
momofwestnpop's review against another edition
5.0
This is a middle school book but I listened to it on audio and found it so cute, had a great message and was funny!
coatsy44's review against another edition
4.0
As a bookseller I’m trying to read books for all ages to recommend. SO many things to love about this.
A brown girl on the cover. Takes place in Michigan. Lots of history. Baking. Teaching kids to save money. And a funny book.
I would have loved this as a kid and it was a cute read as an adult. Definitely recommend for that young reader in your life. I may even read the rest of the series.
A brown girl on the cover. Takes place in Michigan. Lots of history. Baking. Teaching kids to save money. And a funny book.
I would have loved this as a kid and it was a cute read as an adult. Definitely recommend for that young reader in your life. I may even read the rest of the series.
katimae's review against another edition
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5