I'm With the Band

September 28, 2015
Calonita (Flunked) targets Directioners and other boy band devotees with this effervescent first book in the V.I.P. series. Twelve-year-old Mackenzie Lowell and her two best friends live for the band Perfect Storm and are dying to see them in concert. Mac also loves drawing comics about her alter ego Mac Attack, who is part of a crime-fighting girl band (Gudsnuk, creator of the Henchgirl
webcomic, provides exuberant comics sequences and spot illustrations throughout). Mac’s dreams of someday marrying her Perfect Storm crush, Zander, become just slightly more plausible after Mac’s mother announces that she has been asked to manage Perfect Storm on tour, and Mac will be coming along. While Mac’s embarrassment over a poster and poem she created for the band and a conflict within Perfect Storm provide tension, the real meat of this diary-style story lies in the behind-the-scenes details of life on tour, as well as Mac’s relationships with the band members as she gets to know them as real people. Ages 8–12. Author’s agent: Dan Mandel, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.