Bessica Lefter Bites Back

January 15, 2012
Sixth-grader Bessica's new middle-school persona meets a host of problems, including mending a friendship damaged by mean text messages, facing a bully in her first outing as team mascot and coming to terms with her grandmother's boyfriend. Readers unfamiliar with The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter (2011) may find it difficult to get their bearings in her world. In that book, her habit of acting without thinking resulted in having to start middle school without her best friend but also won her a shared spot as a bear mascot for the school teams. This volume picks up where that left off, without much explanation. Rumor has it the opposing mascot in the first game will facebomb her. Neither Bessica nor readers learn what facebombing actually is in this context until after the disastrous event, in which Bessica literally bites her opponent. Figuratively, she also bites her former best friend, Sylvie, not only through her phone but also through a well-meant but mean-spirited birthday present. The first-person narration barrels along, as Bessica would, with neither forethought nor reflection. After the fact, Bessica spends more time justifying her unthinking behavior than examining it. Without having met her in the first book, readers will not have gotten to know this preteen well enough to understand or care. Start there. (Fiction. 9-13)

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March 1, 2012

Gr 4-6-In this sequel to The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter (Delacorte, 2011), Bessica has made up with her best friend, Sylvie. She is about to make her debut as the half-mascot of North Teton Middle School. She has found some new friends. Things are going fairly well for her, considering that her grandmother is still on vacation with Willy, a man she met online, and Alice, the other half-mascot, still hates her. Then Bessica learns that T.J., the mascot she will face off against at the first game, plans on humiliating her with a facebomb. She's not sure what that is, but she knows it's not good. Not even feeding the dreamy Noll's lizard while he's away at horseback riding school or her grandmother's early return can distract her from her worries about what will happen. If T.J. succeeds, her whole school will be humiliated. She just needs to decide whether to bite first or bite back-and not get in trouble for it. Give this gently humorous first-person narrative to fans of Clementine who have outgrown her. Imagine Clementine as a middle schooler and you have Bessica. She's often tough to take, but her endearing qualities keep one rooting for her.-Brenda Kahn, Tenakill Middle School, Closter, NJ

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2012
Grades 4-7 Bessica Lefter is back, and she is just as socially doomed and imperfect as in The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter (2011). When her best friend, Sylvie, accidently unleashes a rumor about an unpleasant foot fungus, Bessica's already-slumping social status plummets. The ensuing falling-out with Sylvie, the stress of having to split mascot duties with dour Alice Potgeiser, and her unflagging crush on a hunky neighbor all bring about a comical resolution that will have readers laughing aloud while shaking their heads in disbelief. Bessica's imperfection is what makes this a story not only about self-reinvention but also about self-improvement.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2012
This sequel to The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter offers the same energetic narration as its predecessor but with a bit less heart than the first novel. Bessica has reunited with her best friend, but she has new enemies to worry about as she prepares to represent her school as (half of) the team mascot. Her trials and tribulations offer some genuinely funny moments.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)