It's
Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
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and #IMWAYR day
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July 21, 2026 by Union Square Kids
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Strengths: I don’t want to give away too much, since there is a great backstory to the killer jack o’lanterns that are terrorizing Wilcott Head. Suffice it to say that “it’s not nice to fool (with) Mother Nature!” The opposition to the Mullins’ farm makes sense for several reasons, even if people like the Jamaican born Mrs. Barnes are not always taken as seriously as they should be for their objections. It was nice to see Dahlia befriend Penelope, and to work with her stepbrother Levi, even if she didn’t really want to. The town is deliciously creepy, and the kids are given free rein to wander about in the dark, which is always fun. There are plenty of tense moments, which are essential in a scary middle grade book. This read quickly, and will be a good addition to an autumnal horror collection, even though it would be good to read all year.
Weaknesses: Like this author’s scary The Thirteen Doors of Black House, this is being published in paperback. Titlewave does not yet have a prebound version, but I will keep my eyes open for one. Paperbacks do not hold up well in my middle school library.
What I really think: This is a great choice for people who liked Gillespie’s Give Me Something Good to Eat, Arden’s Small Spaces, Strand’s It Watches in the Dark, Russell’s Down Came the Spiders, and Krovatin’s Killer Harvest. Also, this has made me add “small rural towns with harvest festivals” to my list of places I never want to live, along with the Florida Keys, New York City, Hawaii, and anywhere south of Ohio.
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May 5, 2026 by Ten Speed Young Readers
Copy provided by the publisher
Spudbert lives with his mother, father, sister Parka, and dog Ollie. He isn't particulary fond of school, and doesn't do as well as his friend Raven, although he knows not to cheat from her papers when she is distracted. He also has a metal robot friend, Chomp. Spuddy, aka "Kid Potato" embarks on a variety of every day adventures. These goofy antics include an alien getting stuck in Chomp's head and needing to be sent home, and Kid Potato being paired with a vampire-like classmate named Kid Evil for science fair. The two construct a project measuring how eating cheese before bedtime changes people's dreams, but don't win. Kid potato goes to visit his elderly grandmother, and gets involved with her high end toilet, the Flusterton, when it goes rogue and causes havoc by sucking things into itself. Even though he's not a competitive bowler, he decides to enter the Croco Bowl tournament so he can beat nemesis Finchely. Finally, we find out more about Ollie's past as there is a pet day at the school and Ollie runs off. There are several pages of puzzles at the back of the book for those who like activity books.
Strengths: Like Kinney's Wimpy Kid series, Kid Potato has little discernable plot, but an endless supply of gags, jokes, silly illustrations, and potty humor, so I can see this being very popular in my library, along with books like Keller's Arnie the Doughnut and Pastis' Timmy Failure books. It's been harder to find good notebooks novels since graphic novels have really taken off, but for some reason, graphic novels tend to skew towards female characters. The constant stream of zany takes, like the school being across from a prison and next to a sewage processing plant, the alien destroying Kid Potato's school and home, and the sentient toilet are paired with MAD Magazine type illustrations. I can imagine this being a great choice for a giggle inducing read aloud for first graders, who will unabashedly love the potty humor and slapstick comedy, but it's also good for middle school readers who want a fun break from all of the serious books language arts teachers assign. The sequel, Fry and Stop Me, will be published in September 2026.
Weaknesses: Readers in the US will miss the joke with Parka's name, since we don't called baked potatoes JACKET potatoes. Since this was first published in the UK, it does seem very British, but other UK notebook novels, like Pichon's Tom Gates Clover's Rory Branagan: Detective, and Berger's The Pudding Problem have done well in my library.
What I really think: This was not a personal favorite of mine, since I have never actually been a twelve-year-old boy and don't particularly care for the low brow humor. Will fans of Pilkey's Dog Man, who seem to be legion, enjoy this? Absolutely. I'll definitely recommend this a lot at the beginning of the school year in order to get kids to read, and hope that they will use this as a bridge to more challenging books like Hall's fantastic new This Could All Go Bad or, aptly, Costner's My Life as a Potato.
Weaknesses: Readers in the US will miss the joke with Parka's name, since we don't called baked potatoes JACKET potatoes. Since this was first published in the UK, it does seem very British, but other UK notebook novels, like Pichon's Tom Gates Clover's Rory Branagan: Detective, and Berger's The Pudding Problem have done well in my library.
What I really think: This was not a personal favorite of mine, since I have never actually been a twelve-year-old boy and don't particularly care for the low brow humor. Will fans of Pilkey's Dog Man, who seem to be legion, enjoy this? Absolutely. I'll definitely recommend this a lot at the beginning of the school year in order to get kids to read, and hope that they will use this as a bridge to more challenging books like Hall's fantastic new This Could All Go Bad or, aptly, Costner's My Life as a Potato.
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