Twelve-year-old Lizbeth always has a plan, and those plans have usually worked--until now. No matter what she tries, she can't get rid of her dad's new girlfriend, Claire. And when she and her mom move, Lizbeth has to join a sixth-grade class already in progress, where her teacher makes her wear a name tag and she's seated with three notorious "weirdos."

When faced with mandatory participation in a school talent show, Lizbeth and the Weirdos decide to create self portraits. Reluctantly, Lizbeth finds herself becoming friends with people she thought she had nothing in common with--and coming to terms with the things she can't control.

I received this book from Netgalley and Carolrhoda Book in exchange for a honest opinion. Which I must say that I am very happy to give. As an educator I try to look for good middle grade books to recommend to students so I was very excited to get a copy of this one. This book a well-crafted mix of seriousness and humor. There were times where I could not stop laughing.
Lisbeth was enjoyable with her quirky humor and offbeat personality. Lizbeth is a twelve-year-old dealing with family issues (divorce), school issues (new one), and relationship issues (finding friends). At this age, kids some kids tend to stay away from kids that are different from themselves. I think Garrett does a good job taking readers through the challenges Lizbeth faces and how she learns to deal with situations and learn how to just be herself. As Lizbeth grows as a character, she begins to understand what is important.
All in all, this is a slow burning, well developed middle grade story that will surely make you smile and glad you picked it up. Again, thank you to Netgalley for this free ebook in exchange for my honest review. Defiantly a book I would recommend to many fifth and sixth graders, I would even go to far to suggest fourth graders.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I loved this book originally for the cover, that's what drew me in, but in the end I did not finish it because of the number of bullies this poor child had to deal with.

"Name Tags and Other Sixth-Grade Disasters" is a must read middle grade novel. The main character is complex and tackles relatable problems that many middle school readers will identify with.

This was a super cute middle grades novel. I definitely will be purchasing it for my school library. The main character’s (Lizbeth) parents are divorced, and she moves across town with her mom. When Lizbeth is forced to start at a new school and make all new friends, she is forced to sit at “the weirdos’ pod.” Through an art project for the school talent show, Lizbeth discovers a lot about herself and who her real friends are. I just really enjoyed this, and I think it would be a good book to share with new students.

Lizbeth, a sixth-grader girl who recently moved to the other side of town related to her parents divorce. Her mother chooses to continue her life along with Lizbeth, while her father already has a new relationship with a woman, works as a lawyer, named Claire. To Lizbeth, this is a disaster, her perfect world is ruined just like that. Not to mention some difficulties where it happens in her new school. New friends, new teachers, and of course new rules. But those disasters don't make Lizbeth give up so fast. Deep down she made a mental note that “things will be doing well all together'' especially related with her parents' relationship. Without Lizbeth acknowledgments, things aren't that easy to get fixed, there are A LOT of them that need to be fixed.

After I finished reading this book, what came to my mind was “why do children always have to be victims for adult problems?” And instantly forced them to enter the real world of an adult, they don't have a choice to enjoy their own world. Luckily, some children got lucky to survive this kind of problem by always staying positive and doing great things. Lizbeth here, is a VERY positive girl. She is always trying to find a bright side of a problem. This happens during her school life, where she witnessed and experienced it by herself what it looks like to be bullied/calling names, what she has to do when her friend is being bullied, even she made a commitment to pull out one of the students who apparently got stuck in a wrong group of students.

This story is recommended to any readers, especially middle-grade readers who are dealing with change themselves. It's wrapped with difficult topics such as divorce, bullied, broken relationships, but with humor, positive words, teamwork, and the important ones...kindness.
I adore Lizbeth with her positive attitude and brave enough to stand up for everyone that she loves.

Thank you to Lerner Publishing Group, I received the digital ARC through NetGalley in exchange with an honest review.

While I did find this story really enjoyable, there were pieces of the story where the characters were very mature, and didn't seem like they were typical kids of their age. This happens frequently in the genre because we have adults writing from the POV of children, which is a tricky task. However, kids will be able to relate to Lisbeth and the challenges she faced. I found my self LOL'ing many times throughout the story, and I think my kids will too.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

The premise of Name Tags and Other Sixth-Grade Disasters is strong and the humor laced throughout is a bonus, but it wasn’t as good as I had hoped.

While Lizbeth is supposed to be a sympathetic character, dealing with her parents’ divorce and bullies at school, she’s no gem herself. In fact, her interactions with the adults in her life make her just as much a bully. Her behavior is so off-putting, I almost walked away from the book. She does grow and learn more about herself as the book progresses, but it’s not a book I’d pass on to my own child when she’s old enough to read it.

Ginger Garrett is a solid writer, and I can see how this book may appeal to some middle-graders, but with so many other good options, I’d call this a library read at best.

I received a digital arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was interested in reading Name Tags because it seemed like a cute middle grade that would keep my attention.

However, I was pretty disappointed right from the beginning. The way the kids, but especially Lizbeth, interact with the adults just throws me off. She bullies her dad's girlfriends and says and does awful things. I can understand a kid being upset and acting out, but Lizbeth's actions seem a little extreme and make me uncomfortable. I also think this would've made twelve years old me uncomfortable. I mean, what 6th grader randomly references someone sounding like "Elmo if Elmo had sustained multiple blunt-force traumas to the head" and high kill animal shelters? I'm sure some would, but I just find it odd and off-putting.

It did get a bit better once our main character started to learn more about herself and her relationships and had some character growth. But even at that point, it was just okay.

I can see how this might be an entertaining book for some kids, but it won't be one I recommend. I gave it 2/5 stars.

3.5 stars - Good+
Rough start to this one for me. Lizbeth is a bully to her dad's girlfriends which makes her very hard to like or empathize with. Every endearing things she does with her friends at school is undone by the hateful things she does out of her anger at her parents' divorce. I was pretty disappointed in how little her parents did to address her antics, too.

Thankfully, Lizbeth does start to change. She learns some empathy, starts to grow up a little. There are hints of insightfulness.

The art pieces of the story, the climax of larger school story, and the other kids in Lizbeth's pod at school really made this book for me. I loved the ending; I loved how Lizbeth and her dad help out one of the other kids. There are lots of fantastic pieces to this, which help offset some of Lizbeth's awful choices early on.

I gave this book four out of five stars because I am not the intended audience. My personal liking of the book would have been 2.5-3 stars. Lizbeth is quite the main character. She's busy trying to force her way into a new best-friendship, eliminate her father's new girl friend, and sort out her own feelings. As an adult reader I found Lizbeth to be annoying and over-the-top, but as a former sixth grader I could sympathize with her antics. This would be a good one to read to the class, the kids will find it humorous and relatable.

I find I am losing interest in this so I have to DNF. I can see the appeal of this book to tweens, as struggling to fit in and feeling uncool are common growing pains for this age group. However, nothing about this really stood out to me.

I really wanted to like “Name Tags”, which I received from Net Galley, and it was cute enough, but it just missed the mark. It appeared that almost every single character in this book was a bully of some sort, including the classroom teacher. 6th graders, for the most part, are in middle school, not elementary school. I get what the author was trying to get across, but I just can’t support how she did it. Needless to say, I won’t be recommending this to my school-age kiddos at the library.

Clever, witty, and laugh out loud funny! I absolutely loved Name Tags and Other Sixth-Grade Disasters. This is one of those books that I caught myself thinking about days later and chuckling all alone. Lizbeth, Claire, and Paul all feel like real people I could have met when I was in middle school. Unlike some books that feel like an adult trying to me relatable with the kids, this story really captures the feeling of being a pre-teen. Really great read!

A fun, coming of age story that highlights how important art is to schools. It's laugh out loud funny and will have readers feeling so connected to Lisbeth.

A great funny story for middle graders with great lessons against bullying, labeling, and allowing others to define who you are.

Name Tags and Other Six-Grade Disasters was very moving, and I think a lot of readers in the target age range will really be able to relate to Lizbeth and the struggles she's dealing with. Lizbeth wants to be funny and be everyone's friend, but she doesn't understand why the popular kids don't like her (and it's not anything she specifically does - it's because she's placed in a group with the "uncool" kids, and that marks her as uncool, too). She gets in trouble at school and doesn't know why that's happened, either, because she wasn't trying to be bad. She hates that her father is dating, because she just wants her parents to get back together, and it doesn't make sense to her that they can be happy without each other when her world has been torn apart. And she learns that true friends are there for you and don't make fun of you or make you prove yourself to them, and tries to pass that on to other kids, too.

My only real issue with this book is that Lizbeth's teacher really doesn't treat her well when she first starts school, forcing her to wear a name tag for days, which is clearly really embarrassing for Lizbeth, and getting mad at her for reasons she doesn't explain. There's really only one short scene that deals with the teacher apologizing for this and basically saying it's because she's sleep deprived (ie excuse instead of true apology), and I thought it needed a little bit more than that. But there's enough good in this book that I think it's a worthwhile read for kids close to Lizbeth's age who may be dealing with many of the same things as her.

It was funny and had a good message, but I just couldn't sympathize with the main character. She seemed unnecessarily rude and like she tried to be "weird" on purpose at school.

We all have been labeled in life. Perhaps the "name tag" you were given hurts more than you can admit.
Our protagonist, Lizbeth, is going through a major life change - and she doesn't like it. More than anything she wants things to be "like they were." But life has changes, and we adapt if we are smart.
Lizbeth is an "every kid" She wants to be friends with the "cool kids" - don't we all? But she ends up in the Weirdo group.
The story covers a lot of hot topics, among them parental divorce and bullying. And while bullying can be straight up violence, there are other less obvious forms of bullying. Having experienced only the physical type in my life, I can't say which is worse. But I can tell you that I am sure both are devastating to the person being bullied.

This book shows that overcoming adversity and learning to be your true self can be its own reward. Let's remove the labels that we place on people and instead see them as opportunities from friendship.

Lizbeth is such a fun and adventurous character!
Lizbeth is still having trouble accepting her parents' divorce, and now she has to adjust to moving and starting a new school. So she has two goals: (1) make lots of new friends, and (2) get rid of Claire, her father's new girlfriend. But as the story progress we see that none of her plans are quite working out.
I loved watching Lizbeth learn and grow throughout the story and see her learn about true friendship, forgiveness, acceptance, and helping friends in need.

This well paced story will have you laughing at some of her antics, cringing at her missteps, and empathizing with her difficulties adjusting and mourning her old life, but will also cheering as she begins to deal with her emotions and build a new life.

This story will be relatable and enjoyable to many readers, but particularly those who are dealing with change themselves definitely for the middle grade age range.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC! so cute!