The Amazing Beef Squad

January 1, 2021

Gr 4-6-In the town of Leonardsville, a famous swindle has been hanging over residents' heads since the town's beginning. And the charter members of the Amazing Beef Squad, four smart but mischievous middle school boys, are about to get a chance to make things right. Nick, Pratchett, Jared, and Hogue get good grades, but you wouldn't necessarily know that from all of the time they spend playing video games and pulling pranks. Their latest escapade- adding made-up words to the glossary of the school's science textbooks-has landed each of them in suspension and under the overly watchful eye of school resource officer, Officer Jim. Even though they have to play it safe for awhile, the firing of their favorite teacher Mr. Easton is enough to spring them into action in a scheme that is bigger than they imagined. This tale suffers from lack of plot and character development. In the beginning, the blurred time lines make it hard for readers to understand what is happening in the present and what is merely background information. Readers might also have a hard time suspending disbelief. Overly flat characters coupled with exaggerated plot points (the school has students digitizing city documents as a part of their schoolwork) may make it hard for readers to stay invested. Even the interactions between the characters, especially between parents and kids, are not authentic and shift wildly from moment to moment. Although this is on the shorter side for middle grade novels, the overuse of descriptive language and labored dialogue causes the pacing to drag. For books with a similar tone but better results, consider John H. Ritter's The Boy Who Saved Baseball or John David Anderson's Ms. Bixby's Last Day. VERDICT This book is not recommended for purchase.-Louie Lauer, Jefferson Elem. Sch., Fargo, ND

Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2021
In trying to save a favorite teacher from being fired, a tight quartet of seventh grade pranksters and a newbie uncover a web of small-town chicanery. Keying off a traditional middle-grade fiction trope, the new kid, motorcycle-boot-wearing, hip urban kid Karla Woo, is both a girl and smarter than her four classmates combined--as she demonstrates by not only beating them repeatedly in the video game "Dynamus," but hacking several phones and security systems...almost in time to save them from being caught in a bit of nighttime breaking and entering. In their defense, though Hogue, Jared, Pratchett, and Nick (the narrator) aren't above concocting fiendishly clever schemes to drive a succession of substitute teachers nuts, they are decent sorts at heart, and it's really their high regard for unconventional science teacher Mr. Easton that fuels most of their shenanigans. Discovering that he's being railroaded out of town by certain prominent local citizens eager to cash in on some suddenly valuable real estate, the middle schoolers do ultimately stumble their way to an improbable but devastating expos� that puts Easton back in the classroom and the villains in deep legal soup. This amiable caper features a young cast that is as smart as it is smart-mouthed, mildly caricatured grown-ups, and comical pratfalls aplenty on the way to a triumphant close. Everyone presents as White excepting Karla, who is cued as Korean American. More belly laughs than surprises, but a well-buffed debut novel. (Fiction. 10-13)

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