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The Clueless Girl’s Guide to Being a Genius

This is the story of two 13-year-old girls, each on different ends of the spectrum.  Aphrodite, “Dytee,” is a genius and at the age of 13, has already graduated with a master’s degree from Harvard in math.  Mindy, also 13, is in remedial math in eighth grade, and must pass or else will be held back.  Dytee has a theory that everyone can be a math whiz if just given the correct instruction.  Mindy and her co-hort of classmates have been labeled as ‘boneheads’ and don’t think they can learn anything, although they’re desperate to try.  Dytee comes back to her hometown, her home school, and is the new math teacher for the ‘boneheads.’  A 13-year-old teaching other 13-year-olds.  As you can imagine, she has no control over them whatsoever.  She was never part of that group of kids who skipped classes and was so disrespectful to the teachers and who never did any homework.  Just the opposite, she was a ‘good girl,’ well behaved, never truant nor disrespectful.  She dressed like an old lady and acted like an old lady.  After many weeks of torture, for all of them, Dytee was able to strike a deal with the ‘boneheads.’  She knew they wanted to pass math so they could go to high school, and they were desperate.  She entered them in a math challenge bowl as a team.  If they could at least make a respectable showing, she would pass them, for she truly believed that they were competent but were living up to their reputations because it was easier that way to fit in with the cliques.  Each student presented a math project which was designed to exemplify what they wanted to do in life, showing how math was important.  They formed study groups and met each day after school.  Dytee tutored Mindy in math.  Mindy also tutored Dytee in how to be a 13-year-old and to act accordingly, especially in her dress styles.  Needless to say, everyone was an ugly duckling and became swans.  This book would make a great Disney movie.  Snappy dialogue, fast action, but no surprises, in fact, very predictable.  I think girls who are a little like Dytee or like Mindy will enjoy this book.