Girl Reporter Sinks School!

June 1, 2000
Gr 4-6-Ace reporter Casey Smith stumbles onto an important story at school. Someone is selling the answers to an upcoming math test and all of the evidence suggests that Casey's one-time rival and editor of the school paper, Megan O'Connor, has purchased a copy. It is up to Casey to catch the real culprits and to clear Megan's name. Along the way, she learns that not every question has a black-or-white answer, and that it is as important to find out the "why" of a story as well as the "what." Narrated in a flip style with chapter titles suggestive of newspaper headlines, the plot is enlivened by other members of the paper's staff. Casey is sometimes irritating to her fellow students in her single-minded pursuit of a story, but she finds out she is not always right and sometimes needs to compromise, and learns from her mistakes.-Terrie Dorio, Santa Monica Public Library, CA

Copyright 2000 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2000
%% This is a multi-book review: SEE also the title "Girl Reporter Blows Lid Off Town!." %% Gr. 4^-7. "My name is Casey Smith and I am way too much for middle school," says the precocious narrator of Ellerbee's new series, Get Real. Set in a small town in the Berkshires, the books follow sixth-grade reporter Casey. Aided by the rest of her quirky staff and mentored by her Pulitzer Prize^-winning, live-in grandmother, Casey discovers the thrill of identifying and chasing down stories. Filled with flip, wisecracking banter, the books are fast-moving and fun, as Casey and her staff uncover local scandals and navigate middle-school social life. Some of the details seem too old for the intended readership (Jane Austen taught in a sixth-grade English class); Casey's reporting skills are unbelievably advanced, particularly in the first title; and language is uneven, with some cliched jokes, outdated phrases, and cartoonlike dialogue. But although these may not be entirely realistic stories, Ellerbee creates in Casey a passionate and likable character whose infectious enthusiasm will draw readers to the series. ((Reviewed March 1, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)