Middle school is going to take some getting used to. The halls are hectic, the unspoken rules are baffling, and the eighth-grade boys are one big gang of bullies. Agnes’s best friend Prejean has jumped in and decided to run for class president, but Agnes would rather try to be invisible. That’ll be especially difficult now that Prejean has asked Agnes to be her campaign manager. And then there’s the problem of Aram, a boy in Agnes’s art class who seems to have a crush on her. He’s smart and funny, and Agnes feels comfortable with him. But is he such an odd duck that she’ll seem odd by association?
“O’Dell creates some of the liveliest characters in recent fiction,” said VOYA of Agnes Parker . . . Girl in Progress. And here, those characters face the exciting, nerve-racking rite of passage that is seventh grade. It makes for Kathleen O’Dell’s most genuine, endearing book yet. Who better to introduce readers to middle school than the funny, warmhearted Agnes, who can’t be invisible even when she tries.
