We Are Party People

August 1, 2017

Gr 4-6-Pixie Jones is a shy seventh grader who prefers to keep her head down. Her parents are the opposite; in fact, being the life of the party is the family business. They are children's party planners who dress up as mermaids, pirates, and more. Pixie usually helps out in the background, but when her mom is called away to care for Pixie's grandmother, her dad asks her to play a mermaid at an upcoming event. Meanwhile, Pixie has befriended a new student at school, Sophie, who is not submitting quietly to their lowly social position. Sophie runs for class president despite the election traditionally favoring popular students. Her friendship with Sophie challenges Pixie to think beyond her assumptions about the middle school social hierarchy. The two story lines dovetail nicely in a predictable but satisfying climax. Pixie's first-person perspective is endearing. She also speaks candidly about things like her grandmother's Alzheimer's and a friend's gluten intolerance, and her relationship with her harried dad is particularly tender. Readers can sense his distress over his absent wife and his desire to connect with the tween daughter he struggles to understand. VERDICT Give this to fans of gentle, realistic fiction. A solid purchase for medium and large collections.-Amelia Jenkins, Juneau Public Library, AK

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2017
Pixie has contentedly played introvert to her extroverted parents, but now circumstances demand that she expand her limited comfort zone. Mom had to leave over a month ago to visit her own ailing mother in Fresno, so the white 12-year-old and her dad, Dan the Man, must run the family business--preparing, producing, and running birthday parties--without charismatic Mom. Pixie is infuriated when her father announces, "We need you to be a mermaid next Saturday." "Next Saturday" means in approximately two weeks, and Pixie is determined to avoid the assignment. For years, she has been an organized, quietly competent part of the business. Meanwhile, she and her less-than-popular friends join a class-president campaign for the seemingly self-assured Sophie, a white classmate whose personality does as quick an about-face as Pixie's by story's end. Pixie narrates in the present tense, with plenty of flashbacks, musings, and editorializing, running the full gamut from humorous to dead serious. Occasionally, her confessions reveal a tendency that seems to veer beyond shyness into acute anxiety. The strongest chapters are the lively accounts of how Pixie and Dan organize and run parties without Mom. As Pixie takes risks, she moves beyond self-consciousness and even faces her former nemesis. Unfortunately, the character arc may have some readers inferring that an outgoing, entertaining personality is superior to one of quiet supportiveness. Racial and sexual diversity exist among secondary characters. Middle school angst tempered by humorous insights. (Fiction. 8-12)

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