The Ripple Effect

To secure her title as the class clown, sixth grader Marzella Trudi is determined to come up with the best class prank her small town of Kettleby has ever seen. With the help of best friends Bowie, an organized pianist, and Janea, a fashionista with a growing online presence, Zella attempts to generate the perfect idea; she’s simultaneously concerned about her family’s failing ice cream business and her grandfather’s worsening dementia. Zella finally hits on a plan, but when the prank backfires spectacularly, the whole class is punished, and Zella must find a way to make amends. By utilizing alternating first- and third-person narrators—including Zella, Bowie, and Janea, as well as other classmates and Kettleby residents—Caprara (Worst-Case Collin) underscores the importance of community in this saccharine paean to paying it forward. A leisurely buildup shifts gears into rapid-fire snapshots depicting community spirit and the importance of kindness and cooperation, making for a quiet small-town novel that eschews self-reflection and drawn-out conflict for tidy, sometimes passive solutions. Characters are racially diverse. Ages 9–12. Agent: Allison Hellegers, Stimola Literary Studio. (Feb.)