Starting School with an Enemy

Author Elisa Carbone bursts onto the middle-grade scene with a laugh-out-loud story of a girl who tackles life head-on. Ten-year-old Sarah definitely has an attitude. But who can blame her? Her family dragged her along on their move from Maine to Maryland, she's left her best friend behind, and the first kid her age she meets calls her a "sick-o." What did she do? All Sarah really wants is to make a good friend. But just as it looks as if she might find one in fast-talking, soccer-playing Christina Perez, Sarah's newfound enemy launches a crusade to make her life miserable. And Sarah can't stop herself from getting revenge--even though it threatens her new friendship.Lots of laughs and spunky characters abound in this totally entertaining middle-grade novel, reminiscent in style to those of Barbara Park and Judy Blume. Sarah's witty observations and trouble making antics make for fun reading, and readers--even reluctant ones--will cheer as she finds an inventive solution to her "enemy" problem.

"Carbone's frank and energetic voice invigorates a common scenario: an elementary school bully gives a kid a hard time. But readers will cheer rather than pity spunky Sarah. Carbone shapes characters with such lifelike dimension and through conversation so true that her story is at once comfortably familiar and entirely novel. This middle-grade novel belongs at the head of its class"--Publishers Weekly (starred review).

"Will keep even reluctant readers hooked until the end." School Library Journal