If there's one thing Ross is good at, it's making an exit. He and his mom have moved around his whole life (she's a bassoonist for a traveling orchestra), and at each school, he's gotten better at leaving. Sometimes, on his first day in a new school, he's already developing his "Exit-lence" plan. But when Pops has a bad fall and needs assistance with his recovery, Ross and his mom move in. Suddenly, it looks like they might be staying put, and Ross is stuck in a new middle school, trying to figure out how to make friends and be funny, when all he's ever known before is how to leave. Although the exit strategy plot feels a bit flimsy, the tale is told with skill, humor, and pathos. There's a funny through line about his school science project analytical study on the structure of humor, complete with graphs and charts ich is a miserable failure during trial runs. A sweet and earnest story about learning to stand still and taking a long, hard look at who you are.

Ross has elevated the art of leaving to an art form, so when he has to stay at a school for longer than a few months, he has trouble adjusting to his new reality.Because of his mom's career as a musician they move a lot. In fact, Ross has had to leave 11 different schools, and he's only 12. For his last day at a particular school, he's developed a tradition of making a dramatic exit so people remember him as the funny kid. But when his grandfather needs help while recovering from a fall, Ross' mom takes a job that doesn't involve any traveling, and Ross is stuck at his new school indefinitely. To fit in, he makes a plan, which doubles as his science project—become a funny person so people will like him. Using the scientific method, he researches, develops a methodology, and tests his jokes. Will people be impressed? Will Ross make any friends? Allbright mixes humorous diagrams and tables in with a charming first-person narrative in her debut novel about Ross and his classmates, who all seem to be white. Ross' inner dialogue is imaginative and self-deprecating, and most of the events in the book feel like natural consequences to a kid's habit of overthinking and trying too hard. Using the scientific method to make friends—clever and surprisingly effective. (Fiction. 8-12)

In Allbright-s entertaining debut novel, an itinerant middle schooler gets a humorous lesson in building relationships and putting down roots. Ross Stevens hasn-t just moved 11 times: he has made a grand exit from each school he-s attended, often involving a big prank that would-ve gotten him suspended if he had stayed. It-s a solid track record of what he calls -exit-lence,- but when Ross-s grandfather falls ill, the commitment-phobic 12-year-old is forced to settle down. Unaccustomed to forging real friendships beyond those involving his family and one childhood best friend, Ross has to learn how to get to know people-and think about how he wants to be known. While researching -how to be funny- for a science fair project, Ross learns how humor can bring people together or tear friends apart. Allbright-s fresh take on middle school social dynamics is genuine and sweet without being saccharine. Readers learn alongside Ross just how rewarding it can be to take risks and show one-s true self to the world. Ages 9-13. Agent: Emily Keyes, Fuse Literary. (June)