The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt

Starred review from July 1, 2010
Gr 5–8—-oxie Roosevelt Kipper, 13, has always felt too ordinary for her extraordinary name, and she plans to reinvent herself now that she has gone away to boarding school on a music scholarship. At the Eaton Academy for Girls, she tries out several personas, including Mysterious Earth Goddess (MEG), Hale and Hearty Sports Enthusiast (HHSE), and Detached, Unique, Coolly Knowing Individual (DUCKI). Moxie keeps a logbook just to remember which personality she's been using with whom. It's exhausting, but she's holding it together, just barely, until she realizes that her journal is missing. She's terrified it might land in the wrong hands. Moxie is every young teen who believes that other people's lives are more exciting than her own and wants to make herself special, too. While her misadventures are hilarious, Moxie is an endearing, complex character with whom young adults can easily identify. In the end, she realizes that true friends like you for who you are and enjoy differences as well as similarities. This great book has a good message without ever becoming preachy.—"Nancy P. Reeder, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Columbia, SC"

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2010
Grades 5-7 When 13-year-old Moxie Roosevelt Kipper goes to boarding school, she seizes the opportunity to leave behind her less-than-colorful personality and assume a new identity. But which one? Unable to choose, she takes on several, becoming Mysterious Earth Goddess, Hale and Hearty Sports Enthusiast, Detached, Unique Coolly Knowing Individual, Assertive Revolutionary Activist, and Amish in turn. Finding it increasingly difficult and exhausting to remember what she has said to whom and which role she needs to fill when, Moxie reaches a crisis point and survives, with a little help from her friends. Through Moxies witty, first-person narrative, Kimmel explores one girls quest for identity within the hothouse environment of a girls school. Moxies angst is believable, her mistakes are amusing, and her self-deprecating narration makes her actual personality seem as vibrant as those she is trying on for size. Although the topic of identity has its serious side, Kimmels latest novel brings out the humor as well.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)