Geeked Out by Obert Skye - ESSENTIAL

Skye, Obert Geeked Out, 212 pages. Henry Holt and Company, 2018. $14. Language: G (no swears); Mature Content: G; Violence: G.

As Tip Dover (as in tipped over) explains it, middle school is hard enough without the breakdown of society or the potential end of the world.  Tip and his three friends, Mindy, Owen, and Xen, are the only members of the AV Club at Otto Waddle Jr. High Government Outpost, called WADD for short, where the principal hides from the students, the school is run by a tyrannical secretary named Darth Susan, and students take classes like Identifying Edible Weeds.  The AV Club used to stand for Audio Visual, but with the dystopian chaos, it now stands for the Avoid Violence club because Tip and crew are geeks who tend to get picked on. The action picks up when they are hiding from the jocks and certain destruction, and find a can of green expired goo in the cafeteria.  Then the four friends turn into the League of Average and Mediocre Entities, or LAME.

This book is quirky and funny and the frequent line drawings really add to the storyline.  Tip and his friends are delightful characters and their middle school experience should delight anyone who has ever survived public education or currently surviving it.  Readers of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books should like this transition to a meatier book.

EL, MS – ESSENTIAL.  Michelle in the Middle