Jojo vs. Middle School

by Joy McCullough, Veeda Bybee

Overview

After having hilariously terrible first days of sixth grade, four girls vow to ride out the super highs and cringe-worthy lows of middle school together, no matter how awkward it gets, in this first book in the Team Awkward middle grade series.

Jojo has everything planned out for the perfect first day of middle school, down to her outfit and hairstyle. But when Mom, distracted by her new live-in boyfriend, Paul, forgets to wake Jojo up, she oversleeps and has to make do with leggings, a t-shirt, and her brother’s hoodie.

The day still goes okay until Jojo realizes that she has a hole in her leggings thanks to Purrito, the kitten Paul “gifted” her. Because Paul isn’t just Paul; he’s Mr. Meow, a mega-famous cat-fluencer. Nearly everything in Jojo’s life is now cat-themed—including the underwear that the hole in her leggings is now showcasing to the whole school!

Embarrassed and unable to show her face in the cafeteria, Jojo spends her lunch period in an abandoned locker room. But she isn’t the only one hiding to cope with some major awkwardness. Maybe, with friends by her side, middle school won’t be so bad after all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665950725
Publisher:	Aladdin
Publication date:	02/11/2025
Series:	Team Awkward , #1
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.20(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Joy McCullough writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area, where she lives with her husband and two children. She is the author of the middle grade novels Across the Pond, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Not Starring Zadie Louise, Code Red, Kestrel Takes Flight, and Basil & Dahlia, as well as the middle grade series Team Awkward, and the picture books Harriet’s Ruffled Feathers, Champ and Major: First Dogs, and The Story of a Book. Her debut novel Blood Water Paint was longlisted for the National Book Award and was a William C. Morris Debut Award Finalist. Visit her at JoyMcCullough.com.

Veeda Bybee is a former journalist and holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of Lily and the Great Quake: A San Francisco Earthquake Survival Story, Li on Angel Island, and Shining a Light: Celebrating 40 Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders Who Changed the World. Veeda is also the coauthor of the Team Awkward middle grade series and part of the Rural Voices and Calling the Moon anthologies. She has a rescue golden retriever/cattle dog named Sophie (from Howl’s Moving Castle) and fluffy black cat, also from an animal shelter, named Zuko (from Avatar: The Last Airbender). Veeda lives with her family in Nevada where she reads, writes, and bakes.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1 1.
By the time I arrive for my first day of sixth grade at Kagan Middle School, I’m starving, exhausted, and limping.

And school hasn’t even started yet!

I should back up. None of this would have happened if my family were still living in our apartment two blocks from the middle school. But no! Over the summer we had to pack up our whole lives and move all the way across town.

My brother Sam says I should be glad about the move. The new house is a lot bigger than our old apartment, and mostly, Mom’s a lot happier now with her new boyfriend. It’s his giant house we moved into.

I’m not getting too comfortable, though. Our dad didn’t stick around, and there’s no reason to think this guy will either. If not, we’ll probably do what Mom was planning right before Mr. Meow showed up: move to Texas to live with my abuelos. I love them, and their ranch is the best for a visit. But the tiny K-12 school closest to them definitely doesn’t have a softball team, which is a major bummer.

For now we live with Paul, which is Mom’s boyfriend’s real name, but the entire internet knows him as Mr. Meow. I’m not even kidding. He’s a catfluencer. AS HIS JOB. He spends his whole day making silly videos and social media posts with his cats.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good internet cat video as much as the next person. Give me all the cats on robot vacuums, cats surprised by cucumbers, and cats in death matches with laser pointers. But don’t make me live with the guy who makes those videos.

Sam says, “It’s dope that he’s making bank doing what he loves.” But Sam’s mostly just glad the guy has an extra car he gets to drive. Mr. Meow is nice to our mom and he makes her happy, but he is seriously the most embarrassing person on the planet, and now my clothes are permanently covered in cat hair.

Also, he’s entirely to blame for my disaster of a morning.

Every year since kindergarten, my mom has made a big production of waking me up with breakfast in bed on the first day of school. It’s a whole thing. Even in fourth grade, when my dad left and she had a hard time getting out of bed, she managed. The frozen waffles weren’t totally defrosted, but still!

This morning, though, my first morning of middle school, I woke not to my mom’s gentle shake on my arm, but to a wild beast devouring my face!

I’ve never had a problem with cats. At least not before Mr. Meow was shoved into my life. But I don’t want them sticking their paws in my water glass, randomly batting at me when I walk by, or sitting on my computer when I’m trying to watch videos. All of which have happened in the last week. And I definitely don’t want them biting my nose first thing in the morning. (Or ever!)

“Ugh, Purrito, get off.” Mr. Meow’s followers named this particular kitten, even though Mr. Meow claimed she was a gift for me. It doesn’t matter anyway. She’ll stay here when we move to Texas.

I rolled over, hoping to catch a few more z’s before my breakfast in bed. But I happened to see my clock before my eyes drifted closed again.

8:29?!

Mom was supposed to wake me up at seven fifteen!

If I wanted to catch a ride with Sam, I had to be ready in six minutes!

And I HAD to catch a ride with Sam. My alternative was a ride from Mr. Meow, in his Meow-mobile. I promise, I am not making any of this up. The Meow-mobile is a minivan covered entirely in cat stickers—not just on the bumper, like a normal cat lover’s car. Mr. Meow sells these stickers on his website: goofy cartoon cats paired with all his catchphrases. Things like With the right cattitude, anything is pawsible and I’ve got felines for you and Enjoy every meowment.

They completely cover the van—front, back, and sides. I would rather move to the Australian sheep farm where my dad is currently living—or at least where he was the last time we heard from him—than arrive at the first day of middle school in the Meow-mobile. And my dad lives in a tent!

Thankfully, I had laid out my first-day-of-school outfit the night before. I’m not usually super into fashion, but the first day of middle school only happens once. So I admit it: I had planned this outfit for weeks.

First, when we were moving, I found a red plaid skirt in Mom’s closet. It was part of the uniform at her Catholic high school. She said she hated it, so who knows why she’s kept it all these years. Adults make weird choices. But she didn’t care when I took it and paired it with a black T-shirt and chunky black boots.

At least that’s what I was planning for my first-day-of-school outfit. But when I grabbed for the skirt, instead of getting a handful of fabric, I stuck my hand into something gross and wet. I knew what it was before I looked—cat puke.

“Purrito! What did you do?!” I looked around for the suspect, but I only caught a flash of tail zipping out of my room as Purrito fled the scene.

So much for my perfectly preppy-cool first-day-of-school outfit. I ran for the bathroom to clean the puke off my hand (blech!!!) and then back to my bedroom.

I was down to five minutes. I grabbed the first T-shirt and pair of leggings I saw and pulled them on as I hurried down the stairs.

Guess what’s not a great idea? Putting on leggings while going downstairs. Of course I tripped and twisted my ankle. But I couldn’t let it stop me.

I ran my fingers through my tangled hair—so much for the intricate braid I’d spent all summer learning—as I ran limping into the kitchen to find my mom perched on a barstool at the kitchen island, staring with heart eyes at Mr. Meow.

Editorial Reviews

"Jojo's first-person narration nails the middle-school voice, capturing all the uncertainty that comes with big change as well as the roller coaster of emotions. The foursome's new, tenuous friendship is supported by realistic dialogue from well-developed characters....From a confiscated-phone heist to dealing with her mom's boyfriend being a famous cat-influencer, Jojo faces big changes via a series of hilarious high jinks with her new friends."

02/01/2025 - Booklist

In this hilarious series launch. . . depictions of open communication and sincere, vulnerable friendship cultivated amid cat-astrophically laugh-out-loud misadventure offer maturing readers an exceptional model for what fulfilling relationships can look like.

11/11/24 - Publishers Weekly *STARRED REVIEW*

"A fresh, witty, and friendship-focused series starter."

12/15/24 - Kirkus Reviews

2024-11-09
The ups and downs of a newly formed group of friends as they weather their first days of middle school.

Jojo, a biracial Guatemalan American 11-year-old, is adjusting to some big changes; she’s about to start sixth grade, and she, her brother, Sam, and their mother have recently moved in with Mom’s embarrassing boyfriend, Paul, an influencer known for his social media posts about his cats. After Jojo accidentally flashes her cat-themed underwear to her classmates (unbeknownst to Jojo, one of Paul’s felines ripped a hole in her leggings), she avoids the cafeteria and instead eats lunch from a vending machine in an abandoned locker room. She stumbles upon three other girls who are also feeling isolated and disconnected; each shares her own awkward and mortifying first-day story. The following afternoon, reports of a bobcat on the premises prompt the school to initiate a lockdown. The girls shelter in place, but because of the faulty announcement system in the locker room, they don’t initially realize the building has been evacuated. When they finally discover what’s happening, they bond further, dubbing themselves “Team Awkward” and venturing through their empty, potentially bobcat-filled school together. Filled with fun callbacks, the humorous dialogue rings true, and the lively, fast-paced though implausible plot will keep readers hooked. Additional characters—including family members, classmates, and teachers—are introduced intriguingly, suggesting they will get more time to shine in future installments. Jojo’s school is diverse.

A fresh, witty, and friendship-focused series starter.(Fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews