A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius

A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius
by Stacey Matson

Grades 5 & up

Realistic Fiction

The Arthur Bean series

Book Summary:
Arthur is ready for the world to acknowledge the brilliance of his writing, ready for Kennedy to fall in love with him at her earliest convenience, and almost ready to face the recent loss of his mother. He is absolutely not ready for inept peers or clueless teachers to interfere with his genius-level plans.

There are two more books in this series.

Book Review:
Written completely through journal entries and other texts between characters, this book offers a nice look at different middle school perspectives, and the main character makes some healthy discoveries. Humorous, great pacing, lots of appeal. Easy to recommend for lots of middle school readers (and many fifth graders) - it's similar to I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President with more appropriate upper elementary content and less bite to it.