April 1, 2023
Family, friends, and middle school are tough in ways this book intuitively gets and even celebrates. At elite Benjamin Banneker College Prep in Denver, a new weeklong STEAMS competition--that is, science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, and sports--requires collaboration among teams of sixth through eighth graders. For Black seventh grader Frederick Douglass Zezzmer, losing is not even an option. His former professional football player dad has recently come back into his life with big sports-centric expectations for Doug. However, Doug intends to become the "World's Greatest Inventor," avoid summer sports camp, and legitimize his talents in his dad's eyes. His nervous but optimistic best friend, Huey, is also part of comically named team TravLiUeyPadgeyZezz, a portmanteau of the students' names. While Doug's point of view is foremost, the novel's narration shifts among many perspectives, giving a rich, panoramic view of how stressful yet ultimately rewarding these learning experiences are for the overachievers, the socially awkward, the kids with complicated home lives, and all those--young and old--who just need to see each other a little differently. The competition itself impressively brings readers into the week's suspense while highlighting insights that many who have had to balance the demands of academics with the complexities of home life already know--and that Doug and his crew are finding out the hard way. Creative and hilarious. (Fiction. 8-12)
COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
April 17, 2023
A driven Black middle schooler attending Denver’s prestigious Benjamin Banneker College Prep must become a team player in Thomas’s debut, a witty competition drama. Frederick Douglass Zezzmer has a 57-step plan to become the World’s Greatest Inventor, but Doug’s birth father—a former Denver Broncos player who recently reentered his life—has a different vision for him: attending the Elite Juniors sports camp. Doug believes that participating in, and winning, a weeklong STEAM and sports tournament will persuade his father into letting Doug pursue his own dreams. But to succeed, Doug must collaborate with classmates from varying disciplines, including art and athletics, something that forces him out of his comfort zone and challenges him in new ways. As Doug navigates budding friendships, dynamic rivalries, and tense familial relationships, he realizes that he doesn’t have to do everything on his own, and that not everyone is as they seem. By utilizing multiple POVs, including that of Doug’s stepbrother, Thomas lays the groundwork for a telling that prioritizes characters’ interiority as well as their impact on each other’s lives. While Doug’s determined voice is the primary focus, the rotating narratives showcase each of the racially diverse characters’ individual stressors, delivering a well-rounded accounting that is better for its multiplicity. Ages 8–12.
July 1, 2023
Take a school full of competitive "control freaks," each with ambitious personal goals, put them into an all-middle-school group STEAMS (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, sports) competition, and you will rock their universe. Twelve-year-old Frederick Douglass "Doug" Zezzmer, a Black student at Benjamin Banneker College Prep in Denver, is trepidatious. "There's no way to stand out if I'm one of a dozen kids on a team," he says. This will interfere with his "fifty-seven-step strategy to become the World's Greatest Inventor" and Operation DazzleYee, intended to impress his principal, Dr. Yee, enough to nominate him for Rocky Mountain GadgetCon. Furthermore, he's placed on the worst team possible. They're the "Island of Misfit Toys of STEAMS teams." Dr. Yee comes up with wild tests, events, contests, and challenges for the students, related through the author's clever use of alternating voices that offer insights into the minds and lives of characters. As miserable as Doug is at the beginning, he eventually gets into the spirit of the competition and sees his teammates, now friends, in a new light. By the end of the competition, he says, "I'm not sure how Dr. Yee did it, but he got all of us celebrating for each other." Thomas's debut novel is a refreshing take on middle-school life -- smart kids who know they are going places but learn to take care of one another along the way. Dean Schneider
(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
Starred review from February 15, 2023
Grades 4-6 *Starred Review* An experimental series of team-building exercises takes many of the hyper-motivated students at a Denver middle school for the gifted out of their comfort zones in this warm and funny debut. As a quintet of misfits, ranging from nine-year-old brainiac Travis Elizabeth "Shark" Cod to Frederick Douglass Zezzmer--destined, in his own mind anyway, to become the world's greatest inventor--make their way past six STEAMS-based challenges (the second S is for sports) that ruthlessly eliminate teams that can't get the hang of working together. Thomas strews the increasingly suspenseful competition with teachable moments and traces learning curves not only for the students but for teachers and parents, too. The cast, premise, and lightly delivered life lessons are reminiscent of E. L. Konigsburg's The View from Saturday, and however reluctant readers may be to accept the author's proposition that winning isn't always the same as coming in first, they'll be swept up by the drama and the brisk dialogue, not to mention a school where hot-lunch choices are based on answering quiz questions and the principal snatches student-made spy drones out of the air and pockets them without breaking stride.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
October 20, 2023
Gr 3-7-Black seventh grader Frederick Douglass Zezzmer (Doug) is an aspiring inventor and one of the most competitive students at Benjamin Banneker, a top STEM magnet school in Colorado. When Principal Yee announces a competition that forces students to not only compete in STEM subjects, but also in arts and sports, Doug is determined to win. However, he finds himself on a misfit team made up of his best friend Huey, a would-be magician afraid of taking center stage; Liam, a good-natured klutz from a family of athletes; the intense and universally feared Padgett; and Travis, aka "The Shark," a diminutive future astronaut. On top of this, his biological father keeps ignoring Doug's scientific ambitions, determined to turn him into an athlete like he was. Thomas uses wacky humor to deliver a light but laudable message about teamwork and friendship being more important than placing first. This collaborative ethos is reinforced by the structure of the book, which features distinct chapters from multiple characters' perspectives (Padgett's chapters are written as emails to her grandmother, while Travis's are presented in verse). The characters are racially diverse and students who sign, use wheelchairs, and have service animals are mentioned. Characters also come from a broad range of family structures: Doug is from a blended family and has a stepbrother he initially detests; Huey has six parents thanks to multiple remarriages; Travis's mother is dead; and Padgett lives with her grandmother in a motel. VERDICT Notable for its overt focus on STEM and its promotion of female and Black scientists, this will be of most interest to libraries seeking humorous novels about school and family life that feature diverse protagonists.-Leonie Jordan
Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2023
Take a school full of competitive "control freaks," each with ambitious personal goals, put them into an all-middle-school group STEAMS (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, sports) competition, and you will rock their universe. Twelve-year-old Frederick Douglass "Doug" Zezzmer, a Black student at Benjamin Banneker College Prep in Denver, is trepidatious. "There's no way to stand out if I'm one of a dozen kids on a team," he says. This will interfere with his "fifty-seven-step strategy to become the World's Greatest Inventor" and Operation DazzleYee, intended to impress his principal, Dr. Yee, enough to nominate him for Rocky Mountain GadgetCon. Furthermore, he's placed on the worst team possible. They're the "Island of Misfit Toys of STEAMS teams." Dr. Yee comes up with wild tests, events, contests, and challenges for the students, related through the author's clever use of alternating voices that offer insights into the minds and lives of characters. As miserable as Doug is at the beginning, he eventually gets into the spirit of the competition and sees his teammates, now friends, in a new light. By the end of the competition, he says, "I'm not sure how Dr. Yee did it, but he got all of us celebrating for each other." Thomas's debut novel is a refreshing take on middle-school life -- smart kids who know they are going places but learn to take care of one another along the way.
(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)