Janice Repka

This zany middle grade novel shows that the shortest distance between cluelessness and genius is often friendship.

"Here’s something fun you can do. First, get out of your chair. (I’m trusting you on that.) Next, stand in an open space. (Trusting you, again.) Now spin like a quantum mechanical particle. (Or a top or tornado, whatever.) Faster. Faster. STOP. Did you feel it? That slip-in-time moment when your brain hadn’t caught up with your body and it felt like you were still spinning? I love that. It’s like my body has outsmarted my brain, which is not easy to do. Excuse the pun, but my brain kind of has a mind of its own. If you put a math problem in front of my eyes, no matter how hard, it sets off this switch and I have to try to solve it. So my life’s been a little… weird, I guess you could say."