Worse Than Weird

December 1, 2019
A technology-loving 12-year-old girl is convinced that her hippie parents are the ultimate in embarrassing, but then she learns that her friends are struggling with far more challenging concerns. MacKenna "Mac" MacLeod's unconventional parents host annual Earth festivals, enjoy goat yoga, and participate in the Portland, Oregon, Naked Bike Ride (albeit with private parts covered by flowers and dreadlocks). Meanwhile, Mac believes that computer coding is her superpower and wishes that her parents were more buttoned-down in their presentation. Driven by the need for funds to attend computer camp, Mac participates in a prize-focused treasure hunt involving Portland's famed food carts and engages her friends to help. Mac soon learns that all of her treasure-hunt partners have parent-related troubles of their own: family separation, intense pressure to excel in competitive swimming, parental mental illness, and homelessness. All the while she adopts a coder's mindset to solve problems: both big and small, inanimate and human. Readers will appreciate following the multiethnic food-focused treasure hunt, Mac's zeal for coding, and her compassionate friends as well as her eventual transformation in thinking about the life of her family. Mac, her family, and her friends present white with the exception of one who appears to be of Vietnamese heritage. Earnest, entertaining, and original. (author's note) (Fiction. 8-12)

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February 1, 2020

Gr 3-7-Middle-schooler MacKenna MacKensie MacLeod thinks that "three Macs is excessive," so she just goes by Mac. Her name isn't the only thing that aspiring coder Mac finds to be a little too much. Her kale-loving, naked-biking, drum-circling parents can be a lot to live with, and she knows that they will neither approve of nor want to pay for the coding camp that she's set her heart on. With the help of her two friends and an enigmatic newcomer with family issues of his own, she sets out to raise the money by winning a food truck promotional scavenger hunt. Since she's in Portland, OR, there are a lot of food trucks, and things quickly start getting complicated. The quest is quirky to the point of the occasional eye roll, and most of the adults are close to caricatures, but readers will enjoy Mac's dynamic with her friends. There's plenty of warmth and fun mixed in with the twee. VERDICT A good bet for fans of Emma Donoghue's "The Lotterys" books or Jennifer Chambliss Bertman's "Book Scavenger" series.-Katya Schapiro, Brooklyn Public Library

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2020
Expressing disapproval of one's parents' values and lifestyles is a rite of passage for many tweens, and Mac (short for MacKenna MacKensie MacLeod) is no exception. Her family lives off the grid, growing vegetables, raising chickens, and hosting a freewheeling summer festival that features (mostly) naked bike rides. Mac, in contrast, longs for a conventionally �middle-class life. She's also a coding wiz and wants to go to computer camp, but to do so she needs five hundred dollars and permission from her parents, who believe technology can destroy the soul. When she discovers that the local food trucks are �sponsoring a contest with a two-thousand-dollar prize, she sees a way. Mac outlines her grievances reasonably, allowing readers to identify with her point of view. But clues begin to surface that her two BFFs and new kid Joey Marino, who pops up at the most unexpected times, have problems much more serious than parental embarrassment (one of Joey's mothers is experiencing homelessness, for example), and readers start to see Mac's self-absorption. Humor lightens the tone, softening the hard edges as Mac acknowledges and confronts her own flaws. Appended with an author's note about the contemporary Portland, Oregon, setting as well as tips for �acknowledging and helping homeless populations.

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

May 1, 2020
Expressing disapproval of one's parents' values and lifestyles is a rite of passage for many tweens, and Mac (short for MacKenna MacKensie MacLeod) is no exception. Her family lives off the grid, growing vegetables, raising chickens, and hosting a freewheeling summer festival that features (mostly) naked bike rides. Mac, in contrast, longs for a conventionally -middle-class life. She's also a coding wiz and wants to go to computer camp, but to do so she needs five hundred dollars and permission from her parents, who believe technology can destroy the soul. When she discovers that the local food trucks are -sponsoring a contest with a two-thousand-dollar prize, she sees a way. Mac outlines her grievances reasonably, allowing readers to identify with her point of view. But clues begin to surface that her two BFFs and new kid Joey Marino, who pops up at the most unexpected times, have problems much more serious than parental embarrassment (one of Joey's mothers is experiencing homelessness, for example), and readers start to see Mac's self-absorption. Humor lightens the tone, softening the hard edges as Mac acknowledges and confronts her own flaws. Appended with an author's note about the contemporary Portland, Oregon, setting as well as tips for -acknowledging and helping homeless populations. Betty Carter

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)