Review: The Great Greene Heist

Title: The Great Greene Heist
Author: Varian Johnson
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine
Pages: 240
Available: May 27, 2014
Review Copy: Digital ARC via NetGalley

Summary: Jackson Greene has reformed. No, really he has. He became famous for the Shakedown at Shimmering Hills, and everyone still talks about the Blitz at the Fitz.... But after the disaster of the Mid-Day PDA, he swore off scheming and conning for good.

Then Keith Sinclair -- loser of the Blitz -- announces he's running for school president, against Jackson's former best friend Gaby de la Cruz. Gaby hasn't talked to Jackson since the PDA, and he knows she won't welcome his involvement. But he also knows Keith has "connections" to the principal, which could win him the election whatever the vote count.

So Jackson assembles a crack team to ensure the election is done right: Hashemi Larijani, tech genius. Victor Cho, bankroll. Megan Feldman, science goddess and cheerleader. Charlie de la Cruz, point man. Together they devise a plan that will bring Keith down once and for all. Yet as Jackson draws closer to Gaby again, he realizes the election isn't the only thing he wants to win. -- Cover image and summary via author's website

Review: I had The Great Greene Heist on my radar due to Twitter, but I really got interested once Kate Messner started promoting it during the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign. It features a very diverse cast. Kate Messner set a challenge for bookstores and for readers. You can read about it here. I have enjoyed Kate's middle-grade mysteries and figured her recommendation was a good one. I was happy to see the title was on NetGalley and I finally had a chance to read it this weekend.

The Great Greene Heist is a high energy romp with many comedic moments. There are elaborate schemes, a few enemies to outsmart, and plenty of fun. The beginning threw me off a bit as the perspectives kept changing allowing the reader to get a sense of the many characters, but that settled down soon enough.

The book seems to be realistic fiction, but the author does stretch the reality. The middle school operates a little more like a high school with clubs that are budgeted and a formal dance. Also, some aspects of the heist are definitely pushing the bounds of believability. Heist is in that area of "fun to believe" instead of straight up realism. I think that's what adds to the attraction though. It's what a kid might wish for in middle school rather than what is there.

I can see this book becoming quite popular in the upper grades at the elementary level as well as with early middle school readers. Jackson Greene provides plenty of mischievousness and offers us all a great escape from everyday life. I've pre-ordered it for my school and look forward to sharing it with students.

Reading Olympics?

There are so many reading challenges that I want to do, but I would have to stop doing everything else to be able to complete them all. I am participating in several. In fact, I am not sure how many, but by the end of this post we will know.

I started out with the Latin@s in Kid Lit and Diversity on the Shelf Challenge. They overlap so it's almost like one right? Then I added the Africa Reading Challenge. Somewhere along the line I also added the #MustReadin2014 challenge and then added #50BooksbyPOC. With many of these five challenges, a book qualifies for more than one. Recently, I started the Geisel Challenge too. That one is the easiest simply because the books are so short and I have almost all of them in our school library so they are easy to locate, but this challenge doesn't overlap with many of the others since there isn't a lot of cultural diversity going on with that award. Part of that issue is that so many of the books have main characters that are animals so it makes a bit of sense.

Where am I keeping track of all of the challenges? Goodreads. I have a shelf for each of them. So here is the update:

Latin@s in Kid Lit 21/12
Diversity on the Shelf 84/25+
Africa 6/5
Must Read in 2014 26/110
50 Books by POC 24/50
Geisel Challenge 9/39

I should do okay as long as I don't add any more of them. Oh, I guess this is where I mention that I am still muddling through the 2012 NerdPrintz (43/71 since Jan 2012) and the 2012 NerdCott (100 to of ???) too. All of the Printz books that are left are on my Must Read shelf. I am also plugging away at the Caldecotts whenever the opportunity arises since I never finished it either. It's a crazy crazy reading year, but I am loving it. After all of this updating, it appears that I am actively participating in six challenges and am still chipping away at two old ones for a grand total of 8. Ooops. Wish me luck.