May 5, 2026 by Simon Spotlight
Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central
Alex "Norm" Norman is having an unusually good first day of middle school. Over the summer, he had his wisdom teeth out, and his father (normally a boring therapist) posted a video of Norm dancing and shouting "whoop whoop" when he was coming out of anesthesia. This went viral, and everyone at his school is following him on social media, so he gets a lot of attention, even from popular kids. He doesn't want to stop being friends with his long time besties, Mia and Jordan, so tries to bring them along with him when he sits at the cool kids' table, even if they end up being a little embarassing. There's a lot to navigate in middle school, such as the strict rules about having phones out that Mrs. Stickman, the most ancient teacher in the building, enforces. After his initial surge in popularity, Norm has some missteps that prove he really isn't that cool, and he ends up facing not only declining popularity but also the loss of his best friends. Can he find a way to stay friends with Mia and Jordan while navigating the choppy waters of viral social media, or will he have to settle for being an ordinary citizen?
Many of my students are obsessed with social media and think they can grow up to be YouTubers or influencers without fully understanding how much work goes in to maintaining an online presence. Norm's experience is fairly true to life; odd videos sometimes go viral, and other students at his school would find his sudden fame appealing. I loved that Norm's dad even mentions at the beginning of the book that sometimes friends grow apart in middle school; this is absolutely true, so it's not surprisingly that there is some tension with Mia and Jordan.
While we never see Norm's mother, there's no indication that she has died. Combined with the general upbeat feel to this book, this sets The New Norm and its sequel, Pranks and Prejudice, apart from a lot of middle grade literatue today. I'd love to see more books with humorous takes on the realistic problems that students face.
Hand this to fans of Hart and Rodkey's Marcus Makes a Movie or Weissman's So Over Sharing when they've spend too much time scrolling through social media on their phones and need a brain break!
Did have one reservation-- do eleven and twelve year olds have wisdom teeth removed? I thought this was something that happened later in high school, rather than in middle school. Two characters have teeth removed, and one of these is an event central to the plot.
May 5, 2026 by Simon Spotlight
Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central
Things are hopping at Meadowview Middle School, and this time it's Norm's friend Jordan who is at the center of the social media whirl with his viral pranks. Norm is the victim of one when a vast quantity of glitter falls out of his locker at him, and he's a little jealous of his friend, since Norm's attempts to stay viral haven't gone well. The pranks escalate, with hot chili ookies, the mascot run up the flagpole, vaseline on the faucets, and all of the ink cartridges being stolen from the pens! When Mia (who masterminded the pen prank) thinks that she should be able to use her love of science to come up with an awesome prank, Norm thinks it's a good idea to have her engaged in some non academic activity. When she decides to hide eggs in the school and wait for the resultant stink, Norm doesn't think it's a great idea but helps her out. Not only does the school stink on Monday, but school gets cancelled! The administration is not happy, and cleaning up the stink is harder than Mia expected. Norm admits to his part in the prank to help take the heat off Mia, and his father isn't even mad, since he was helping out a friend. Will he be able to keep Mia out of trouble without getting in even more trouble himself?
There are certainly a lot of pranks on social media; my school had bathroom sinks ripped out of the walls due to some viral TikTok challenge, so I appreciated that most of the pranks weren't that serious. The topic of social media popularity is very intriguing to middle school students, who will also like the idea of pranks.
This was a bit over the top at a few points; Jordan gives everyone at school cookies that are really just ground up beans with spicy salt in them. There might have been Homeroom Cookie Swaps in some schools before the pandemic, but with allergies and other concerns, I found it hard to believe that Jordan was only required to write a letter of apology to one teacher for this prank.
Mia's love of science is intriguing, and I hope to see more of her efforts at using this love of learning for good rather than for evil!
We need more amusing middle grade novels, so hand this to fans of books that explore the humorous side of social media like Lumsden and Pieplow's Confessions of a Mango, Baden's Famous Anonymous, or Soto's frenetic Gone Viral.
I'm not sure that Mr. Gilbert's local middle schools operate the same way that mine does; there were a lot of things that seemed half a bubble off. Since his body of work includes a lot of Stranger Things novelizations, perhaps he is thinking more about middle schools in the 1980s.
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