Gabby Torres Gets a Billion Followers (Gabby Torres #1)

How is nine-year-old Gabby Torres—the middle school environmental club’s youngest member—supposed to impress her fellow Sea Musketeers when she rarely gets to speak during meetings? After persuading her parents to help her bake blueberry muffins for the club, hoping that plying the Sea Musketeers with a treat will grant her an opportunity to talk, Gabby finally gets her opening: she suggests the club create a zine about protecting the oceans, and even offers to generate social media buzz. Though her parents assert that, while she’s allowed to be online, she “must only post with Mom,” Gabby secretly surfs the web alone. It’s during one of her solo runs that she encounters Unicorns$R4babiez, who posts that the environmental club is stupid. Assuming it’s someone she knows, Gabby alienates everyone around her. Though the overarching message regarding social media use and how to deal with online trolls is a bit heavy-handed, exuberant and well-intentioned Gabby, along with her supportive family and friends, help to lighten the load in this environmentally savvy chapter book series opener set in Dominguez’s Stella Díaz universe. Occasional comics depict characters with varying skin tones. Ages 6–9. Agent: Linda Pratt, Wernick & Pratt. (Jan.)