Jojo vs. Middle School

Starred review from November 11, 2024
Bybee (A Few of My Favorite Things) and McCullough (Basil & Dahlia) team up in this hilarious series launch. On top of preparing to start sixth grade at Kagan Middle School, Jojo Lopez is struggling to adjust to a new family dynamic after moving in with her mother’s well-known catfluencer boyfriend Paul, aka Mr. Meow. And if this arrangement doesn’t work out, Jojo, her brother, and her mother will return to the original plan: move to Texas to live with Jojo’s abuelos. Despite all the changes, she’s excited for her first day of middle school. But everything goes wrong, culminating in a mortifying situation that finds her in Kagan’s forbidden hallway, where she encounters fellow classmates Leah, Ryan, and Izzy, all of whom have their own first-day horror stories. As the racially diverse tweens confront challenges relating to perfectionism, busy home lives, and plain old bad luck, they’re each aided by their new friends. Depictions of open communication and
sincere, vulnerable friendship cultivated amid cat-astrophically laugh-out-loud misadventure offer maturing readers an exceptional model for what fulfilling relationships can look like. Ages 8–12. Agents: (for Bybee) Ann Leslie Tuttle, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret; (for McCullough) Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.