Sophie and "Olivia Bean: Trivia Queen"Are you up for a few Jeopardy-style questions to introduce today’s book and blogger?

You are?

Good.

Let’s begin.

Category: Middle-Grade Books.

Answer is: This book features a Jeopardy-loving girl who overcomes her fear of geography and some family challenges to gain confidence and realize a dream.

Question is: What is Donna Gephart’s newest novel, Olivia Bean Trivia Queen (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2012)?

And …

Category: Awesome Kids.

Answer is: This teen likes almost any sport she can play and also likes to go shopping, play outdoors, act, listen to music, watch movies, READ, and lots more! But best of all, she likes to just hang out with her friends!

Question is: Who is today’s guest book reviewer, Sophie?

Nicely done. Now take it away, Sophie!

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This book was about: This book is about a sixth-grade girl named Olivia Bean. But Olivia isn’t the typical sixth grader – unless typical means watching Jeopardy every night, getting geography help from her frenemy Tucker, and having a dad who lives almost all the way across the country with his new family. But that’s not all, now Olivia is trying out for Jeopardy’s kid’s week! She makes it through the first online round easily, but then she’s on to the audition rounds and things start to get more intense. Her instincts take over in the pretend game and she’s through that in a flash, but next is one of the hardest parts, the interview. Even if she does make it through the interview, will it be enough to get her through to the actual live game show with Alex Trebeck in Californa, where she could even see her dad? Read the book to find out!

The best part was when: By far the ending, during the real game of Jeopardy in California. The game was so exciting and sounded so real, but I am not going to say what happened cause I don’t want to give anything away!

I laughed when: Olivia found out that Tucker was never actually making fun of her, only complimenting her about her hula-hooping.

I was worried when: At the end of the book (during the recording of the real show), she started losing and also during the final jeopardy. (But that’s all I’m going to say.)

I was surprised when:  Olivia had the conversation with her old best friend, Nicki (who is Olivia’s dad’s new step-daughter). They had been best friends, but when Nicki, Nicki’s mom and Olivia’s dad moved away it went bad. At first they would talk on the phone all the time, but after a while they grew apart, and later Nicki couldn’t even talk to her. Olivia didn’t understand why Nicki hated her. But by the end of the book. she understood, Nicki said it was just too painful to talk to her. You will have to read the book to find out what that means.

Other kids reading this book should watch for: The way Tucker talks to and about Olivia (especially if he mentions hula-hooping). In the beginning of the book you may not understand, but by the end, I promise you will.

Three words that best describe this book are: “Trivia.” “Life.” “Family.”

My favorite line or phrase in the book is: I have two:

“It’s fun to be smart, Livi” – Charlie Bean

Tucker: “So what are you doing later?”

Olivia: “I watch Jeopardy every night at 7:30.”

Tucker: “Oh that’s cool. My grandma watches that show.

You should read this book because: As you can probably tell by this blog, this book is definitely not just about trivia. You may be able to relate with a lot of the situations in this book because they are about everyday life. Besides that, you will learn a lot of very interesting and fun trivia facts (anything from gross to geographical trivia facts). But most importantly, you will learn that – good or bad – life will go on.

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Thanks, Sophie!

If you want to learn more about Donna Gephart — who also has written As If Being 12 3/4 Isn’t Bad Enough, My Mother Is Running for President and How to Survive Middle School — you can: