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• KIRKUS Reviews

  A young girl braves daily hurdles and unwelcome life changes in Pollack’s middle-grade novel and series launch. It’s not always easy for Jillian “Jelly Bean” Kramer to get noticed. The fourth-grader is the youngest of four children in her New Jersey household, but it’s her three brothers who hog their parents’ attention. While that’s long been the situation with her family, things aren’t going so great at school, either. Jelly Bean has a spectacularly bad day when she misses a chance at a speaking part in the upcoming Thanksgiving play simply for being tardy (her brothers’ fault, of course) and winds up in the principal’s office after allegedly disrupting the class. But that’s only a taste of how terribly everything has been going—her best friend, Taylor Alpert, has very recently turned mean in her attempts to cozy up to the most popular girl in their grade. Once Jelly Bean is “banished” from her regular lunchtime seat, she gets the sense that she has no friends. At least she’s got her fun-loving Uncle Jack at home, but he’s starting to spend more time with his fiancé, who isn’t an especially nice person. “All these new things keep happening,” Jelly Bean laments. “I liked everything better the old way. I can’t get used to everything new!” Now she’s a lonely girl who honestly feels that most people don’t like her and that no one at all cares about her. What she can do, however, is face each day and stay true to herself; maybe her life will show signs of perking up. Pollack’s titular hero shines; she’s likeable and relatable, an even blend of relatable worries and drama-queen moments. She cries when her beloved dog, Roger-Over, sprints out the front door, but she also schemes to get out of rehearsals by declaring she’s going to faint (“Your own daughter is about to pass out, and you don’t even act upset”). As frequently as she points out all that’s wrong in her life, Jelly Bean proves surprisingly resilient; she accepts people for who they are, even if an individual takes out their frustrations on her. While several characters are as mean-spirited as Jelly Bean claims, the narrative boasts an equal number of bright spots. Most notable is the scene-stealing Roger-Over, who’s pure joy in a furry package. The author breathes life into this cast, providing a varied assortment of characters with myriad dimensions, like the mixed-bag of Jelly Bean’s brothers—Sam is the nice one, Joel is the resident jerk, and Michael, the oldest, all but ignores his sister. Taylor doesn’t seem to be impressing anyone with her bid to be popular, and one outwardly warmhearted schoolmate may, sadly, be too weird for Jelly Bean’s comfort. This relatively short novel moves at a steady pace, taking Jelly Bean from one dilemma to the next. An endearing, plucky girl endures and overcomes in this absorbing quick read.

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