Kathleen Karr (Children's Literature)
On the cusp of junior high and an invitation to join the coveted basketball A-team, twelve-year-old Stanford Wong flunks sixth-grade English. It is the end of his world as he knows it. Basketball summer camp is replaced by remedial English. But that is not all. Stanford’s woes build. His father ignores him. His parents are fighting. His beloved grandmother Yin-Yin is put in a home. Adding insult to injury, his genius cousin Millicent Min is recruited to tutor him--every day, after summer school. Lisa Lee, who won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award for Millicent Min, Girl Genius has created another winning character in Stanford. He bumbles, he stumbles, he fights actually reading a book tooth and nail. With all his defenses down, there is no place to go but up. Watch Stanford become a champ in more ways than basketball. Watch reluctant adolescent male readers gobble up Stanford’s story. 2005, Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, $16.99. Ages 10 to 14.

CCBC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices, 2006)
In Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Lisa Yee chronicled the trials and tribulations of an eleven-year-old Chinese American girl whose genius-level IQ stands in the way of social success. Millicent’s memorable and singular voice describes how her summer is almost ruined by volleyball and Standford Wong, the brainless Chinese American boy she has to tutor. Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time gives Stanford a chance to speak. In a novel that covers the same time period as Millicent Min, Yee covers significant new ground as Stanford details life in his family, including concern about his once feisty grandmother whose memory and lust for life are waning, and tension with a father whom he never seems able to please. Most of his friends share Stanford’s obsession with basketball, but none of them play as well as Stanford, whose been chosen for the A-Team at school in the fall, if he can make up for a failing English grade. Too embarrassed to admit to even his best friend that he flunked English, Stanford is desperate to keep the fact that he’s in summer school, and being tutored by stuck-up, brainy Millicent Min, a secret. This is where the two stories overlap, as Yee offers up many of the same events covered in Millicent Min, but from Stanford’s point of view. Already overwhelmed by pressures and changes at home and tensions with a friend who is jealous of his basketball success, things grow increasingly complicated for Stanford when he develops a crush on Millicent’s new friend in town, Emily. Emily has no idea Millicent is a genius. It’s something both Stanford and Millie (who likes being perceived as a regular kid for once) would like to keep a secret. And so there is lying, subterfuge, and, inevitably, repercussions that take honesty, courage, and humility to resolve. CCBC Category: Fiction for Children. 2005, Arthur A. Levine Books / Scholastic, Inc., 296 pages, $16.99. Ages 10-13.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 19))
Yee's companion to Millicent Min, Girl Genius (2003) tells the story of the same pivotal summer that Millicent tutors Stanford Wong-but this time through Stanford's eyes. Although the story is again laced with humor and told in the first person, 11-year-old Stanford is more of a regular kid, and therefore by necessity his voice is more regular too, lacking the hilarious perspective of his socially clueless but intellectually gifted contemporary. Yee compensates by giving her likable protagonist numerous comic tribulations. His biggest is that he failed English and must attend summer school supplemented by Millicent's tutoring. His scholastic problems are further complicated by a difficult home life-a disapproving father, constantly fighting parents and his concern over his increasingly addled but full-of-heart grandmother. He also has several self-generated troubles, specifically lies he told that, in order to keep from being found out, require numerous gyrations to protect. Parts of the story seem drawn out and not all of the complications are credible, but overall readers should find this story amusing, enjoyable and finally touching. 2005, Levine/Scholastic, 256p, $16.99. Category: Fiction. Ages 8 to 12. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Rose Kent Solomon (Library Media Connection, April/May 2006)
Middle school boys will love this book! Named for the prestigious university, Stanford Wong dislikes school. His passion is basketball, but his plans to attend a summer basketball camp after sixth grade are dashed when he fails English and has to attend summer school instead. He hates his teacher, Mr. Glick. To add to his woes, things at home aren't great either: his grandmother has gone, against her will, to live in a retirement home; his ambitious father seems dissatisfied with Stanford in every way and spends almost all his waking hours at work; and he fears his parents are en route to divorce. When they hire Millicent Min, a school genius and geek, to tutor him, Stanford is sure the good life is over. He works diligently at hiding these indignities from his basketball team, the Roadrunners, and from Emily, the object of his affection. By summer's end, though, Stanford sees things differently: he is smart, after all; Mr. Glick and Millicent Min are actually pretty cool; his father does love him; and there will be no divorce. He wins Emily's heart, too. The humorous tone and short chapters will appeal to reluctant readers, and all middle-school readers can relate in some way to Stanford. Middle-school collections need this book. Highly Recommended. 2005, Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic), 256pp., $16.99 hc. Ages 10 to 14.

Loretta Gaffney (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, December 2005 (Vol. 59, No. 4))
There is nothing more important to Stanford Wong than basketball. Unfortunately, his grades reflect this fact, and now, unless he passes a notoriously difficult summer English class, he’ll fail sixth grade and be kicked off the A-team basketball squad. Stanford chafes when his parents employ brainy eleven-year-old Millicent Min (from Millicent Min, Girl Genius, BCCB 11/03) as his tutor but stops complaining once he realizes that, firstly, not all books are bad; and secondly, Millicent’s new friend Emily is appealingly funny and cute. Since Stanford doesn’t want Emily to know he’s flunking and Millicent doesn’t want Emily to know she’s a genius, the two pretend that instead of Millicent being Stanford’s tutor it’s the other way around. Readers of the previous title may be surprised to discover that Stanford is a sensitive young man, attached to his grandmother and secretly worried about friends and family. The relationship between Stanford and his grandmother Yin-Yin exhibits an appealing blend of affection and cross-generational misunderstanding, while the demands of Stanford’s distracted, career-obsessed father give this mostly lighthearted story a few poignant, painful notes. While all tensions are resolved by the novel’s end, the growth and development of the characters are more unexpected, as Yee directly challenges stereotypes not only about Asian Americans but about boys and girls as well. Readers who want another perspective on Millicent Min’s fateful summer of first friendship and self-discovery will enjoy watching the same events unfold from Stanford’s perspective, while those who haven’t read Millicent’s side of the story will still appreciate this disarmingly sincere story of basketball, books, and friendship. Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2005, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, Levine/Scholastic, 296p, $16.99. Grades 5-8.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2006)
In Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Millicent is forced to tutor "stupid Stanford Wong," who's a genius only at basketball. This companion novel tells the same story, from Stanford's point of view. Fans of the first book will enjoy hearing from Stanford, whose struggles are as humorously portrayed as Millie's were. Category: Intermediate Fiction. 2005, Scholastic/Levine, 298pp, 16.99. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.

Walter Hogan (VOYA, February 2006 (Vol. 28, No. 6))
In this parallel novel to Yee's earlier Millicent Min, Girl Genius (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, 2003/VOYA June 2004), Millie's nemesis Stanford Wong gets to tell his own story. Stanford defies Asian American stereotypes: His life is focused on basketball and he is a terrible student. Having failed sixth-grade English, he is now forced to attend summer school rather than the basketball camp on which his heart had been set. After reading just a few chapters of Stanford's jumpy, hyperkinetic, nervously funny narrative style, this reviewer began looking for an ADHD outcome, as in Jack Gantos's Joey Pigza stories, however no such clinical diagnosis emerges here. Instead Stanford begins to get his act together as a result of many motivating factors-a caring teacher, supportive friends and family, an exasperated but ultimately helpful tutor (Millicent), and love interest Emily Ebers, another character from Yee's earlier novel. Unlike a sequel, a parallel novel takes place during the same period as its predecessor, as in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow (Tor, 1999/Voyages,VOYA October 2002) which is set in the same time as Ender's Game (Tor, 1992.) Like Card's famous Ender books, Yee's first novel-also about a child prodigy-has universal appeal. Millicent's story is a book for everyone and not just for school kids. This follow-up novel about her friend is equally humorous and entertaining, but because it is centered upon a less exceptional preteen, it will be appreciated most by its natural audience of upper elementary and middle school readers. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8). 2005, Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, 256p., $16.99. Ages 11 to 14.