Customer Reviews

Millicent Min, Girl Genius (Sid Fleischman Humor Award (Awards))

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The debut novel Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee is an absolute riot. Millicent is eleven years old - and recently completed eleventh grade. Over the summer, she plans to take college courses and (unhappily) tutor Stanford, a boy who drives her up a wall. Her mother, thinking she needs more of a social life with kids her own age, enrolls her in a summer volleyball team. There, she meets a girl who recently moved to town and does not know of Millicent's collegiate status. What's a smart girl to do?

This hilarious book teaches young kids and adults like everywhere that it is okay to be smart. Millicent may feel much older than she is, mentally, but chronologically, she is still a kid. By the end of the summer, she is a little more comfortable in her own skin and proud of who she is and what she's accomplished.

Pop culture tidbit: The audio book is read by Keiko Agena, known as Lane on Gilmore Girls.

I highly recommend this book to kids of all ages. (You too, parents and teachers.) Kids reading comedic realistic fiction such as the Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary, the Alice McKinley series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor or the Judy Moody series by Megan McDonald will certainly adore Millicent Min. I hope that Yee writes more tales, if not of Millicent, then of others. She has a real knack.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It made me laugh; it made me cry. It made me see things through the eyes of a young person again. Millicent, blessed and cursed with being a child genius, needs something that we all take for granted -- a friend. When Millicent thinks she has finally found someone, Emily, who is willing to be her friend she stops at nothing to keep her friendship going. Meanwhile, she's forced into tutoring the one person with whom she doesn't want to be friends, Stanford. To further complicate matters, Emily and Stanford develop a romantic relations of their own that makes for some interesting plot twists and ironic scenes. In the end, Emily finds true friendship, although in the place she least expected to find it. Henrietta Gowin, my favorite character, really has little to do with the story but that name, Henrietta Gowin, rings of sophistication. Her character must have been inspired by an exceptional person.

Millicent Min is a good, no great book to read! Not only is it fun filled and funny but it's loaded with little pieces of advice that are very true thanks to the wonderful author Lisa Yee. It's about this very smart girl who has no friends because she is always critizing and correcting them but then her mother signs her up (against her will) for the dreaded volleyball team. There she finally makes a friend, Emily, but Emily doesn't know Milli's secret of being a college student at the age of eleven. Will Millicent tell Emily? And if she does will Emily still be friends? Find out by reading the book.

I've heard that her book is so great that they're going to make it in Italian and it's already out on audio tape! What luck for a first time book! Congrads Mrs. Yee

I know a lot of people like Millicent Min. Even though they may seem smart and confident, they are just regular kids inside. At first I thought Millie was stuck up. Then, I really got to like her. What I really liked about this book was how funny it was. It made me laugh out loud.

Millicent Min has an impressive resume. She started elementary school at age three, has over seven television appearances to her name, and is the subject of more than six articles on the subject of gifted children. Now that she's eleven and a half, she's about to start her senior year of high school. She is, in short, a genius.

In Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Millicent must endure the summer between her junior and senior years of high school as she counts down to the day she will be free from the company of children, and finally be able to spread her wings in college. This summer, her parents have signed her up for volleyball classes and offered her services as a tutor to friend of the family and obnoxiously typical twelve-year-old boy Stanford Wong. On the upside, they've allowed her to register for a poetry class at a local university, and this summer she's made her first friend.

Millicent goes through all the difficulties of being a smart kid, and she experiences them to the extreme. Her alienation, awkwardness, and pride are all emotions with which anyone ever considered "that smart kid" can identify. Her precociousness is charming and alarming; it seems slightly wrong for a girl of almost twelve to prefer spending time with her poetry professor to attending slumber parties. At the same time, for those of us who are the same way, it seems just right.

Like many other children's and young adult books, Millicent Min, Girl Genius shows us how much change can happen over one summer. Millicent starts off knowing it all, needing no one, and socializing almost exclusively with her grandmother. By the end of the book she realizes she has a lot to learn, comes to appreciate her parents more, and starts hanging out with kids her own age. I strongly recommend Millicent Min, Girl Genius to anyone who loves to laugh, has ever felt like they knew better than the rest of the world, or has been told they're too smart for their own good.

I defiantly give this book a 4.5 rating. I loved it! Lisa Yee's unique writing style really kept me hooked the whole way! The storyline was humorous and filled with surprises. . Millicent Min won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award which is awarded to a book with outstanding writing in the genre of humor. I could not agree more, I laughed like crazy throughout this whole book. I especially recommend this to teens in grades 6 through 8 and for anyone who is looking for a great read! Claire. St. John's School Houston, TX

Millicent Min is a delightful prodigy with social incompetence. Although only eleven years old, Millie has already completed the 11th grade and is taking a summer college class. Millie's academic and sophisticated vocabulary contrasts with her childlike naïveté, which endears her to the reader. With wit and wisdom, Lisa Yee has created an unusual, charming protagonist who matures one summer with the help of a new friend, a reluctant student, and her fun-loving family who are all dealing with problems of their own.

I love Millie's voice, the way she thinks, her vocabulary, and her perfectionist habits. Lisa Yee weaves humor with a gripping emotional depth, creating a lovely work of art. In addition to Millicent, Lisa Yee must be a genius.

It's always a joy to find a book that I can't put down, and MILLICENT MIN was such a story. Lisa Yee has accomplished two very difficult feats, combining a genuinely funny book with real emotional depth. Add to this her many interesting and well-rounded characters and you've got a book that kids, and adults like me, will classify as a winner. Congratulations, Ms. Yee!

A friend passed on a galley of Millicent Min a couple of months ago after she finished reading it. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Millicent is charming. She's obscenely smart (she is a girl genius after all), yet dumb (mostly about how friendships and relationship work) in a way that doesn't feel contrived. In fact, a number of parts of the book stirred up memories of my own childhood, which allowed me to laugh with her as well as laugh at her.

Overall, this is an great first effort by Ms. Yee, and I hope that she continues writing!

This is probably one of the greatest young adult book [for females] I have ever read. Seriously, only a VERY few books have captured my attention like this. The humor, plot, and 'suspense' in this book is really good. :) I love how it is written in a journal/diary form, so it feels like you really are reading a personal journal/diary of a person your age, and it is fun! Lisa Yee did such a great job for shaping every character in this book. This book is a comforter for people who always feel like an outcast of something, and how a trust-worthy friend is almost all you need to mend your your empty space in your heart. I would really recommand this book to any young adult female who just loves to read realistic fiction books and can relate themselves to a character in a book in more than one way. I really wouldd give you a summary of this book, but I don't want to repeat it. The vocabulary here is still understandable. (Thank, God.) Most of the "big words" she uses are just things unknown to most of us. There's always a dictionary if you're really bothered by it. All in all, this book is AWESOME.