Control Freaks

Control Freaks
J.E. Thomas
Levine Querido, 2023
297 pages
Grades 4-7
Realistic Fiction

Multiple first person narrations tell the story of a week in the life of an advanced STEAM oriented magnet middle school made up of super-high achievers. Principal Yee announces a weeklong STEAM competition and the students are stoked!  Not so much when they realize that they must break into teams, which gets complicated. Out main hero, Frederick Douglas Zezzmer (Doug), knows that he MUST win this competition. He needs to go to GadgetCon this summer to perfect his skills at inventing, but needs the principals endorsement in order to be accepted. To make matters more complicated, Doug's biological father is back on the scene and insisting that he participate in an intense summer sports program of which he has no interest. The other misfit members of Doug's team (TravLiUeyPadgeyZezz) have their own reasons for wanting to win and the need to prove themselves. We see the points of view of the other members of the team, plus that of the principal, Doug's sportster step-brother, as well as other characters to round out the story. Because of family pressures, Doug makes a bad decision with terrible consequences. The competition rolls along with surprising, and sometimes hilarious, results and ends just where it should with all participants changing for the better.

This is a perfect story for high-reaching kids, who will find much to relate to in the characters within the pages--and wish that they could go to a school like Benjamin Banneker College Prep. The competition provides a framework for the character development and subplots involving the individual situations of the students. Readers will see that every family is complicated, problems can be worked out in time, don't give up on making a friend, and we all have something within us that makes us special. Oh-and cheating is bad. They will also see that grown-ups are human (including principals) and even though we don't always have everything figured out, we love our kids. The first person multiple points of view are all written distinctly with labeled characters at the chapter heads in order to know who is speaking. I was never confused and enjoyed the changing perspectives. The book runs long, but stays interesting and kept me going until the end. The story doesn't read as entirely realistic (for one thing there aren't enough teachers present), but kids won't care and will enjoy the simplified proceedings. Readers will eagerly watch the competition play out and cheer for the misfit team. The real prize is friendship, which our heroes all come out as winners. A fun story with something to say that may help overachievers see themselves and encourage them to take a breath.