AD ASTRA! Shine! by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein

Some people are meant to shine.

Others are better off blending in.

Me? I'm a blender.

Piper has the world's worst voice, but she is backstage at the Municipal Auditorium to help her dad with the middle-school a capella choir competition, the Winter Singoff. Busy blending in in her black dress, she overhears an elderly man in a blazer asking for Mr. Glass, the director of the prestigious Chumley Preparatory School chorus. The preppy choristers continue talking and Ainsley's voice emerges from the scrum of loud chatter by the Chumley singers.

"I sent him to talk to the judges!" says. Ainsley. "We need to be first so we can set the bar so high that no one can top it!"

The old man narrows his eyes. "You, my friends are not the center of this or any other universe. Think hard about who you want to be, children!"

But it's a Pyrrhic victory for Piper when her dad's public school singers actually win. Her dad is offered the job replacing the disgraced Mr. Glass. Piper gets free tuition at the posh prep school, not exactly her Christmas wish, but she goes along because her dad is thrilled at the offer.

But while Piper is busy trying to blend in, Ainsley and her clique continue to vie for glory, competing for everything, from academics to extracurricular activities, and when the school announces a new competition, the Excelsior Award, to be given to one student at the end of the year, the war games are on.  When Piper wins the Science Fair, she and her new friends, Tim, Kwame, and Emily, kick their own efforts into high gear, determined to beat Ainsley and Co. if they can. 

At last it comes down to the Talent Show. Piper prepares a show on the constellations, complete with her new star projector, purchased with dog-walking dollars; Kwame is chosen to be comic master of ceremonies; and Tim, the Great Timdini, plans to end his magic show by sawing a "girl" (actually Kwame and Emily) in half.  It looks like they have a shot at besting the popular crowd yet! But on the day of the show Emily sprains her wrist, and Piper gallantly gives up her act to be the lower half of Tim's magic trick.

It's looking like Ainsley and her snooty cohorts are going to blitz the Excelsior Award competition. But that award turns out to be not what Ainsley expected, an award designed by the old man in the baggy Chumley blazer, the grandson of the founder, tailored to discover the  kindest and most unselfish student in cleverly staged fake disasters over the semester. Needless to say Ainsley is not the winner!

Middle school readers may not be surprised in the comeuppance of the in-group and their self-proclaimed most awesome leader, but perhaps it's not too much to hope that J.J. and Chris Grabenstein's latest best-selling school saga sets a great example in their thoughtful protagonist, Piper Milly. In their latest, Shine! (Random House, 2019), the nice guy does finish first, and for good reason.  Says Kirkus Reviews, "A crowd-pleasing reminder that kindness pays.”