The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter

November 29, 2010
Middle school trauma is the subject of this slice-of-life novel featuring irrepressible Bessica, who's named after Bessica Raiche, "the first American woman to intentionally pilot a solo flight." Bessica is eager to start sixth grade with her best friend Sylvie, but Sylvie's mother, believing Bessica is a "dangerous influence," enrolls her daughter in a different school. As Bessica learns of her friend's abandonment, she also finds out that her beloved grandmother is leaving on a six-week road trip. A lonely Bessica bravely endures her predictably disastrous first days at her new school, where she has run-ins with "psycho-bullies," forgets her locker combination, is accused of breaking a vending machine, and misses opportunities to secure new friendships. While humorous episodes lighten the mood, the heroine's misery drags on too long, and her first-person narrative (peppered with such expressions as "Oh my heck") feels strained at times. Nonetheless, Tracy (Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus) offers a positive and comforting message about learning to make adjustments, ending the book on a happy note, with Bessica finding her niche as school mascot. Ages 10–up.

December 15, 2010

Bessica Lefter looked forward to middle school until a rash decision to get matching pixie haircuts led to her having to negotiate the new school entirely on her own, without her longtime best friend Sylvie. Well-meaning adults and former students give her conflicting advice. On her own she finds it hard to avoid the psycho-bullies and make new friends. Eating cookies from the vending machine in "loner town" had not been her plan. On top of that, her grandmother and best ally has gone off on a trip in her new friend Willy's motor home. One subplot revolves around Bessica's use of an online-dating service to find her grandmother a more suitable friend. Another involves Bessica's efforts to join the cheerleading squad, although she doesn't like to be upside down. The first-person narration reveals the inconsistencies of preteendom, the magnified problems and rapid emotional swings. Both family and school are believable, but, appropriately, this is all about Bessica, a character whose newfound bear persona schoolmates and readers alike can applaud. (Fiction. 9-13)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 1, 2011

Gr 5-6-Poor Bessica doesn't think things can get any worse. On the same day, she learns that her best friend, Sylvie, is going to a different school and that her grandma is going on a six-week trip, leaving her to navigate her upcoming entry into middle school on her own. How will she know how to avoid the dweebs, the psycho-bullies, and the alts? How will she know which clubs to join and which table to sit at in the lunchroom? And will she ever get her locker open? Bessica takes everything very seriously, but many of the situations in which she finds herself are humorous. She is an "everytween" with the typical myopia of the age, and as such many readers will relate to her struggle to find a place to belong and applaud her hard-won position in the middle-school hierarchy.-Laurie Slagenwhite Walters, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2011
Grades 4-7 Tracys latest novel describes 11-year-old Bessica Lefters futile and often comical attempts to discard the vestiges of her elementary-school self at the start of her sixth-grade year. After a disastrous visit to the hairstylist, Bessica loses her lifelong best friend, Sylvie, when their matching pixie haircuts are not equally flattering. Suddenly, Bessica is without an ally and must learn to forge her own identity throughout the perils of middle school. Although its not always easy to like Bessica, it is hard not to laugh with her as she loses her cool in the presence of her hunky teenage neighbor, jump ropes her way into the role of school mascot in furry pants, and tries to make nice with the school bullies. A supporting star of the story is Bessicas tech-savvy grandma, who, even while away on a spelunking trip with her latest man friend, reminds Bessica of the power of positive thinking. Grandma also illustrates the important moral of this story: Look for happiness and youll find it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)