With humor, heart, and accessibility, these entertaining school-set chapter books should help young readers gain confidence in their new skill. See also Five Questions with Emily Jenkins about Harry Versus the First 100 Days of School.

Ivy + Bean Get to Work [Ivy + Bean]
by Annie Barrows; illus. by Sophie Blackall
Primary    Chronicle    128 pp.    g
4/21    978-1-7972-0510-6    $14.99

The twelfth (and final) book about Ivy and Bean finds these best friends still in second grade but hurtling toward their futures by way of career day at school. Bean wants to be an arborist because of the potential for tree-climbing, but the career fair doesn’t offer that. Bypassing the banker, dentist, plumber, yoga instructor, and others, the two join a crowd at the back of the room where “Herman, Treasure Hunter” is holding court with his metal detector and a few of his discoveries. (“Ms. Aruba-Tate seemed surprised that all the kids in her class wanted to be treasure hunters when they grew up.”) Blackall’s spot art captures the fervor and diligence of the friends as they undertake their search for treasure, making each page more entertaining as well as more convincing. New readers will find funny situations and a fast-moving plot to enjoy; and although Ivy and Bean unfortunately end up with little to show for their efforts, they find there are other ways to score treasure. The girls’ infectious spirit, combined with their unique skill sets, should prepare them well for any careers they decide upon. JULIE ROACH

J.D. and the Great Barber Battle
by J. Dillard; illus. by Akeem S. Roberts
Primary, Intermediate    Kokila/Penguin    128 pp.    g
2/21    978-0-593-11152-9    $15.99
Paper ed.  978-0-593-11154-3    $6.99

J.D. is excited about starting third grade at Douglass Elementary School. At least he was excited before his mom gave him a disastrous haircut that makes him the laughingstock of the whole school. Unable to withstand any more teasing, he decides to literally take matters into his own hands and fix his hair. After using his little brother, Justin, for practice, J.D. realizes he is good at cutting hair and starts a barbershop out of his bedroom. Artistic by nature, and with skill and creativity, he attracts lots of customers, not to mention the owner of the only barbershop in town, Henry Hart Jr. When Hart follows through with a threat to shut J.D.’s business down, our protagonist has to use his wits to save everything he has worked so hard for. This early-to-middle-grade chapter book delivers lively black-and-white illustrations and laugh-out-loud moments. At its heart is J.D.’s loving, hard-working, multigenerational family and his close-knit, small-town ­Mississippi community. While there are subtle references to separation (J.D.’s parents) and money struggles (he sports hand-me-downs and gets his video-game and junk-food fixes at his best friend’s house), these are not personal deficits. Rather, they fuel J.D.’s entrepreneurial spirit and his mathematical prowess. The African American cultural references and community values will resonate with readers of all ages, while the joyful, wholesome story will give them something to look forward to in subsequent entries. MONIQUE HARRIS

Boogie Bass, Sign Language Star [After-School Superstars]
by Claudia Mills; illus. by Grace Zong
Primary, Intermediate    Ferguson/Holiday    128 pp.    g
8/21    978-0-8234-4629-2    $15.99
Paper ed.  978-0-8234-4936-1    $7.99
e-book ed.  978-0-8234-5046-6    $7.99

Good-hearted Boogie Bass is in a third-grade sign language camp with friends, including his bestie Nolan, whom Boogie reveres, along with Nixie and Vera from the previous series entries. With one hearing and one Deaf teacher, Boogie and the other campers learn the basics of American Sign Language; briefly study its history; and even get a demonstration of ASL ABC stories from Deaf students at another school. Boogie is a well-rounded character; he is kind and conscientious and learns to not be so tough on himself (“Maybe the point of learning a new language wasn’t to be perfect”), not to compare himself to others (especially Nolan), and to accept his own strengths. A lot of time at camp is spent on iconic signs (ones that look like what they represent), which can be typical for children first learning. But the book also captures the non-manual markers necessary for ASL — including facial expressions, at which Boogie excels — and a back-matter note provides more details about the language’s complex grammar. JULIE DANIELSON

Jo Jo Makoons: The Used-to-Be Best Friend
by Dawn Quigley; illus. by Tara Audibert
Primary    Heartdrum/HarperCollins    80 pp.    g
5/21    978-0-06-301537-1    $15.99
Paper ed.  978-0-06-301538-8    $4.99
e-book ed.  978-0-06-301539-5    $4.99

This series opener introduces Jo Jo Makoons Azure, a rambunctious first grader with “strong lungs” (according to her mom) and a wish to make more friends. In eight brief yet eventful chapters, we follow this seven-year-old Everygirl through a relatable and entertaining series of misadventures and misunderstandings — over everything from rhyming words, to teachers (“Jim” is astonishingly not the P. E. teacher’s first name), to Little Shell Elementary School’s yearbook cover. Through it all, the first-person narrative is consistently engaging, with just the right touch of primary-grade silliness to balance out Jo Jo’s fears about friendship. Will Mimi, her cat and “home best friend,” deflate like a balloon when she gets her shots? And why hasn’t Fern, her “school best friend,” been sitting with her at lunch lately? Throughout, contemporary Native culture takes center stage: Jo Jo’s multigenerational family lives on the fictional Pembina Ojibwe reservation; some Ojibwe and Michif words are phonetically spelled within the text in a manner consistent with Jo Jo’s hilariously frank voice (“If you can say Tyrannosaurus rex, you can say nindizhinikaaz [“my name is…” in Ojibwe]”). Audibert’s cartoony illustrations add humorous layers to this exemplary transitional reader. SAM BLOOM

Popcorn Bob
by Maranke Rinck; illus. by Martijn van der Linden; trans. from Dutch by Nancy Forest-Flier
Primary, Intermediate    Levine Querido    152 pp.    g
4/21    978-1-64614-040-4    $14.99
e-book ed.  978-1-64614-067-1    $9.99

Bob, an egg-sized, anthropomorphic, unpopped kernel of popcorn wearing a Stetson, makes his way from the American Midwest to the Netherlands, where he falls in with Ellis, a more-or-less regular nine-year-old human girl. If this premise takes your fancy — and it will speak to many an early-chapter-book reader — then you’re ready to join Bob and Ellis as they fight to survive and undermine a new, threatening school policy of healthy eating. Bob is a lot of work. Ellis has to keep him secret at home and school, arrange regular reviving sessions in the microwave, prevent him from popping when he loses his temper, and save him when he is mistaken for a rubber duck. (Don’t ask.) The basic pattern here is that Bob wreaks havoc, and long-suffering Ellis gets blamed. A generous scattering of pencil drawings helps to maintain the pace, add funny detail, assist with the visualization (a kernel of corn herding sheep?), and, on a couple of text-free spreads, give us a moment of quiet to collect ourselves. The open-ended finale hints at a sequel from this wonderfully loopy Dutch author/illustrator duo. SARAH ELLIS

From the August 2021 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.