ROMANCE OF THE SNOB SQUAD

The Snob Squad is back (Revenge of the Snob Squad, 1998) and this time the four elementary-age outcasts need to come up with a project for the science fair. Although, in this group, science is nobody’s best subject, a rat that Max captured in her family’s junkyard provides inspiration, and they create an obstacle course for a study in rat motivation. It doesn’t take Jenny—whose wry, wisecracking first-person narration is even funnier in this book—long to figure out that what motivates the rat is the same thing that motivates her: food. She’s secretly sweet on Kevin Rooney, a fact that provides some counter- motivation; meanwhile, shy Prairie confesses that she likes computer-geek Hugh Torkerson. The squad rallies, especially since Hugh and Kevin are on a science-fair team with the girls’ rivals, Ashley and Melanie. The book becomes strained when the problems become more serious; Jenny, the squad’s leader, has a dysfunctional family, with estranged parents and an obsessive-compulsive, anorexic sister. The glib tone never meshes with such somber material, and the resolutions come abruptly. Fortunately, the characters, already solidly realized previously, are even better developed this time around, while the sweetly awkward first-time alliances with members of the opposite sex are nicely done. Most readers will skate over the rough spots for this well-paced novel and its many funny moments. (Fiction. 8-12)