Watch Out, Hollywood!: More Confessions of a So-called Middle Child

by Maria T. Lennon

Overview

Hilarious tween heroine Charlie C. Cooper—reformed bully, misguided fashionista, and so-called middle child—is back! This sequel to Confessions of a So-called Middle Child will delight fans of Louise Rennison, Mean Girls, and Harriet the Spy.

Charlie's adventures offer a fresh look at middle school, bullying, and mean girls. In Book Two, Charlie navigates sudden celebrity and auditions for a television series, but a little white lie may endanger the one friendship Charlie can truly count on—and her connection to swoonworthy crush Bobby! Poignant and seriously funny, Charlie's account of her dilemma is one all tweens will relate to.

Charlie knows what it feels like to be stuck in the middle, but it's finally her time to shine. After saving her friend Marta in the old Houdini tunnels of Los Angeles, Charlie's become a local hero, gained sudden celebrity, and *MIGHT* just become a TV star! But will Charlie let her newfound fame go to her head? Watch out, Hollywood!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062126931
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	08/26/2014
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Maria T. Lennon is a graduate of the London School of Economics, a novelist, a screenwriter, and the author of Confessions of a So-called Middle Child. She lives in Los Angeles with her family. Charlie visits frequently.

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2014
Gr 4–6—In this follow-up to Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child(HarperCollins, 2013), Charlie Cooper is still struggling to distinguish herself among her fellow tweens. Readers will enjoy this entry more if they've already read about Charlie's adventures to make up for her bullying behavior by befriending Marta, an unpopular girl at school. At the end of Lennon's first book, Charlie had achieved personal and social success by both displaying her loyalty to Marta and discovering tunnels used by Houdini. Because of her spectacularly publicized exploits, this installment opens with Charlie planning to audition for a television series, which would, she calculates, make her the most popular girl at school and capture the attention of her classmate Bobby. But Charlie's passion for being in the limelight leads her to make a decision that puts all of that at risk. A conversation with her new agent makes it clear that Marta is actually a stronger candidate for the television role. Charlie, who is enjoying her higher social profile and writing a task list that includes items like "practice autograph," hides the truth from Marta through a complicated series of deceptions. Ultimately, Charlie's conscience and good heart win out and she tries to set things right. The novel's strength is its ability to perfectly capture the particular brand of anxieties that accompany the middle school years and concerns about friends, relationships, and the balance between wanting to do the right thing and to be liked.—Shelley Sommer, Inly School, Scituate, MA

School Library Journal

2014-06-25
A 12-year-old girl with big dreams struggles to reconcile her towering ambition with the demands of just being a good person.Charlie C. Cooper, a smart, strong-minded fashionista and computer whiz, needs to figure out how to win a starring role in a new television series about a girls' gymnastics team while at the same time getting her on-again, off-again friend, Marta Urloff, a spot on the school team for the Junior Olympics. Recent television coverage has billed Charlie an "Ex-bully, Turned Selfless Do-gooder," but real life is more complicated than that for Lennon's initially unlikable protagonist. While it is true that Marta's true talent and calling is gymnastics and the Junior Olympics serves her long-term interests best, she also has an opportunity to audition for the same television role as Charlie. To prevent this from happening, Charlie, in an unconvincing scene, lies. Charlie's falsehood is discovered, poisoning her popularity, disappointing her family and turning off the boy of her dreams. How Charlie takes her lumps and works to make everything right is the crux of this amusing tale, which gains momentum and readers' sympathies as the story progresses. Lennon's over-the-top tale and larger-than-life characters and situations aren't exactly credible, but readers who like their characters big and brash will suspend their disbelief and enjoy. (Fiction. 7-11)

Kirkus Reviews

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