Girl Powered

Tension shifts into high gear when a seventh grade girl joins the (previously) all-boys engineering club at school. From the award-winning author of The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl comes a feisty, feminist story that will inspire readers to grab life by the handlebars and pedal past every outdated expectation.

Samantha Scalera may only be in seventh grade, but she feels like her entire life has already been decided for her. Her best friend Chelsea is counting on her to try out for cheerleading (like they do every year). Her step-mom expects her to help make dinner every night—even though her step-brother gets out of every chore. Samantha can’t even decide her own nickname. Her step-brother is named Samuel, so he got first dibs on “Sam.”

But then Sammy sees a poster for the MPR: The Man-Powered Racers. The after-school engineering club spends every afternoon building a high-tech bicycle with the goal of racing it at a national competition at the end of the year. It’s all boys. All geeks. And all consuming. And yet, Sammy can’t help but wonder if this might be an activity all her own.

If Sammy wants to take control of her own life, first, she’ll have to redesign it and prove that not only can she hang with the boys, but she can also be a force unlike any they’ve seen before.