Review Detail

The debut novel Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee is an absolute riot. Millicent is eleven years old - and recently completed eleventh grade. Over the summer, she plans to take college courses and (unhappily) tutor Stanford, a boy who drives her up a wall. Her mother, thinking she needs more of a social life with kids her own age, enrolls her in a summer volleyball team. There, she meets a girl who recently moved to town and does not know of Millicent's collegiate status. What's a smart girl to do?

This hilarious book teaches young kids and adults like everywhere that it is okay to be smart. Millicent may feel much older than she is, mentally, but chronologically, she is still a kid. By the end of the summer, she is a little more comfortable in her own skin and proud of who she is and what she's accomplished.

Pop culture tidbit: The audio book is read by Keiko Agena, known as Lane on Gilmore Girls.

I highly recommend this book to kids of all ages. (You too, parents and teachers.) Kids reading comedic realistic fiction such as the Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary, the Alice McKinley series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor or the Judy Moody series by Megan McDonald will certainly adore Millicent Min. I hope that Yee writes more tales, if not of Millicent, then of others. She has a real knack.