Take Two

Now in paperback, everyone's favorite duo is back for more twin-tastical chaos in Take Two!

School Library Journal

Gr 4–7—Identical twins Emma and Payton Mills are back in another fun and realistic adventure involving switches, double identities, a school production of the Wizard of Oz, and a team of middle school math geniuses. After being caught switching places in Trading Faces (S & S, 2008), the sisters have agreed to school service work in lieu of detention. Payton, the fashionable one, is assigned clean-up duty for the drama club, while brainy Emma is asked to tutor Counselor Case's eight-year-old twins. Add Emma's crush on cute boy Ox, snide remarks from popular cheerleader Sydney, and a roaming gecko, and chaos ensues as Emma and Payton try to fulfill their service commitments. This is a well-paced story, with chapters alternating between the girls. While the students are colorful and interesting, the adults are a bit flat and sometimes stereotypical; Ms. Nicely, the school media specialist, is on hand to quiet noisy middle schoolers. References to texting and Wii games may quickly date this book, but kids will enjoy it.—Charlotte M. Johnston, Dorchester County Library, Summerville, SC

Julia DeVillers’s books include How My Private Personal Journal Became a Bestseller, which was adapted to a Disney Channel original movie, Read it and Weep. Her other books include Princess of Gossip (with Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan), Girlwise: How to Be Confident, Capable, Cool and In Control and Trading Faces and Take Two, with her identical twin sister Jennifer Roy. She lives in New Albany, Ohio.

Jennifer Roy is the author of Yellow Star, which won a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award for Excellence in Children's Literature and a Sydney Taylor Honor Award. It was a Jewish Book Awards Finalist, an ALA Notable Book, School Library Journal Best Book, and a NYPL Top Book for Reading and Sharing Books for the Teenager.