John Green (Booklist, Sep. 1, 2003 (Vol. 100, No. 1))
Certified genius Millicent Min has problems. Sure, her parents have finally consented to let her take a college poetry class over the summer (even though Millie is not yet 12). But it turns out college kids aren't her peers--they're as dumb and lazy as her nemesis, Stanford. If Millie can just keep her brilliance a secret from Emily, Millie's first real friend, and manage to keep Emily and Stanford from smooching (ick!), things might turn out OK. Yee's first novel examines child prodigies from a refreshing angle, allowing nongeniuses to laugh appreciatively at the ups and downs of being a whiz kid. Millie's pretentious voice grows tiresome after a while, but Yee does an excellent job of showing both Millie's grown-up brain and her decidedly middle-school problems. Even if they can't relate to her mastery of Latin, most kids will readily follow as Millie struggles through a world where she's smarter than everyone but still sometimes clueless. Category: Books for Middle Readers--Fiction. 2003, Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine, $16.95. Gr. 4-6.

Michelle Wade (Children's Literature)
Millicent Min is an atypical eleven-year-old girl who doesn't like boys, nail polish, stuffed animals, shopping, sports, or Stanford Wong, her archenemy. She is also taking a college poetry course the summer before her senior year in high school! Millicent is a genius, and her parents are proud, but they feel that she is missing her childhood. In an effort to help Millicent act like a preteen, her mother and best friend/grandmother, Maddie, enroll Millicent in a summer volleyball team and then volunteer her to tutor Stanford Wong. Millicent's last summer in Rancho Rosetta, California may be one that she will never forget. She has to tutor her nemesis, play on a volleyball team full of beautiful girls who hate her, and deal with her grandmother's move to another city. On top of all this, she thinks her mother is dying. With a summer like that, who needs the school year? But if Millicent will just stop analyzing her life and live it, she may find out that being a preteen volleyball player is as much fun as being a preteen genius. Lisa Yee uses the diary of a girl as the format for this novel. Her use of language allows readers to believe that they are reading the diary of a young girl, while the details remind the reader that the young girl is a genius. Yee's use of slang and simple English establishes a connection between Millicent and the reader. This mixture of language helps to show the reader the different dimensions of Millicent. Even though she has the brain of a genius, Millicent still has the heart of a child. 2003, Arthur A Levine Books, $16.95. Ages 9 to 12.

Barbara Troisi (Children's Literature)
Maybe I ought to live in my tree and just be myself." It's summer and eleven-year-old accomplished genius Millicent Min has just completed her third year of high school lacking friends and searching for a scholarly challenge in a college poetry class. Each new day's recording of incidents reveals Millicent's lack of social and physical abilities to interact in a world of trials and tribulations--the likes of a roller coaster escapade. Her childhood disappeared at the age of two when IQ tests administered first revealed a computer glitch, then an intelligence so high, it's an anomaly. Supportive parents and grandmother are ever present in her life, but there are complications. Dad doesn't have a job, mom has ending-in-death cancer (actually pregnant), and Maddie leaves soon for Europe. A detailed analysis of a new found friend's boyfriend leaves Millicent searching for a younger counterpart. It's at the positively horrible volleyball league that she discovers Emily, but jeopardizes that bond by telling lies to protect a pact with Stanford, the basketball geek who Millicent tutors. Author Lisa Yee's first novel shares her genius in this rollicking, never-a-dull moment enlightenment of a summer in the life of a rising star. 2003, Scholastic Press, $16.95. Ages 10 to 14.

CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 2004)
The fact that Millicent Min has a resumé is the first clue that she isn't your typical 11-year-old. The fact that she's just completed her junior year of high school is another. And then there's the summer class she's signed up for just for fun: Classic and Contemporary Poetry at the local college. Millicent is a genius, and if she's a genius without any friends, well, that's just the price you have to pay for being so far ahead of your peers. But Millicent's mom thinks otherwise. She's signed Millicent up for volleyball over the summer in the hopes that Millicent will connect with someone her own age. And Millicent does. Emily has no idea that Millicent is a genius, and when Millicent decides she'd like to keep it that way, she begins spinning a web of deception that is bound to come unraveled. Millicent's first-person voice is funny ("Oh. My. God. My life is over. My mother has signed me up for team sports."). But through the narrative, Yee also masterfully conveys how Millicent is a girl so very smart, and yet so very clueless, not only about friendship but, much to Millicent's surprise, a number of other things as well. Millicent's Chinese American heritage is a subtle aspect of this sparkling novel. CCBC categories: Fiction for Children; Understanding Oneself and Others. 2003, Arthur A. Levine Books / Scholastic Press, 256 pages, $16.95. Ages 10-14.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2003 (Vol. 71, No. 18))
From Yee's first sentence-"I have been accused of being anal retentive, an overachiever, and a compulsive perfectionist, like those are bad things"-this perfectly captures the humor, unique voice, and dilemma of Millicent Min, its wunderkind heroine. For while there is no doubt that Millicent, an 11-year-old entering 12th grade, is a genius, her social and athletic skills leave something to be desired. In an effort to ameliorate the situation, her parents sign her up for a girls' volleyball league. There Millicent meets Emily, a potential friend, and to seem more normal decides to lie about her academic ability. Comic complications multiply when Millicent's parents induce her to tutor the son of a family friend, who also likes Emily and is delighted to let her think that he's the one doing the tutoring. Funny, charming, and heartwarming, with something to say about the virtues of trust and truth telling, this deserves an A. 2003, Levine/Scholastic, $16.95. Category: Fiction. Ages 9 to 13. © 2003 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 2003 (Vol. 57, No. 3))
I have been accused of being anal retentive, an overachiever, and a compulsive perfectionist,” says Millicent, “like those are bad things.” To her, correctness, achievement, and perfection are the joys of life, and since she’s already out of step with her peers as an eleven-year-old finishing her junior year, those characteristics are pretty much the nails in her social coffin. Her parents are determined that she develop some friends of her own age, so to this end they sign her up for summer volleyball; there she’s surprised to find herself embarked on a genuine friendship with garrulous and inclusive Emily, but she’s unwilling to reveal the truth about her academic achievements to her new friend. While the book deals head-on with the cliché of the Asian-American genius (Millicent resentfully tutors a Chinese-American age-mate who feels her perpetuation of the stereotype only makes his life harder), there are quite a few other clichés in untrammeled operation: Millicent has the ulcers of many fictional accelerated kids, she understands just about everything except for the responses she engenders, she misconstrues her mother’s physical change as illness when it’s really pregnancy. The portrayal of Millicent and Emily’s growing friendship is cheerful and plausible, however; less cheerful but also believable is Millicent’s bewilderment when finally facing something--volleyball--that she has to work to master and her unhappy discovery that college (she’s taking a summer class) isn’t the shortcut to easy human interaction she’d hoped (“It is a cruel joke on me then that college is just like high school, only bigger”). The depictions of Millicent’s affectionate parents and her loving and eccentric grandmother refreshingly reject stereotypes of both Asian-American families and showboating relatives of gifted children. The “genius” notion may hook readers, but it’s the sympathetic depiction of universal trials that will keep them reading. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2003, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2003, Levine/Scholastic, 256p, $16.95. Grades 5-7.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2004)
Millicent may be a girl genius, but outside of academics she's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. Readers will laugh and groan at her ultra-geeky efforts to fit in (granted, it's awkward being the only eleven-year-old in the eleventh grade). In this smartly funny debut novel, Millicent finds that she doesn't know everything and learns some crucial lessons about friendship and trust. Category: Intermediate Fiction. 2003, Scholastic/Levine, 250pp, $16.95. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.

Walter Hogan (VOYA, June 2004 (Vol. 27, No. 2))
At the tender age of eleven, Millicent Min has completed her junior year of high school. Summer school is Millie's idea of fun, so she is excited that her parents are allowing her to take a college poetry course. But Millie soon concludes that college is "just like high school, only bigger." Even in a college classroom, she is far more earnest and dedicated than any of the other students, and she is still regarded as an oddball. Meanwhile her mother signs her up for volleyball "to give her a more normal and well-rounded childhood." Although Millie is a klutz on the volleyball court, there she meets Emily, who shares her dislike of sports. Fearing to lose this first real friend, Millie lies to Emily about her academic genius. Eventually Millie's deceptions catch up with her, and she is forced to apply herself to something other than homework: learning how to become a true friend. The tension between Millie's formal, overly intellectual way of expressing herself and her emotional immaturity makes her a very funny narrator. Millie's obsession with book learning goes far beyond the stereotypical studiousness of Asian Americans. Her laid-back father, artistic mother, and wise, warm-hearted grandmother all encourage Millie to put down her books and broaden her interests. Fellow Chinese student Stanford Wong prefers basketball to schoolwork, and mutters to Millie, "Because of you, teachers expect every Chinese kid to be a genius." Readers considerably older than Millicent's eleven years will enjoy this strong debut novel. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2003, Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, 248p., $16.95. Ages 11 to 15.