While a cute book for the age level, my son just couldn't get into it. It's more his problem than the book, as I read it and enjoyed it. When a friend's daughter improves in her reading, I plan on buying her the series.

Thanks to the publisher for allowing me to read this one.

This is going to be a short review and will only be up at Goodreads as I don't do super short reviews on my blog.

This was an OK book about Halloween, friendship, a new kid, stolen bucks, and fun illustrations. I could understand Wilu. I haven't moved around like he did but I could understand that making friends and then totally losing them just hurts like hell. He was a bit odd, but later we do find out more about him. I loved that our MC was dedicated to making him smile, and even wanted to become his friend.
Then there are the stolen bucks which was an interesting plotline though I wasn't a fan how one of the girls just instantly accused the new kid and how things got really out of hand. I would have loved the teachers doing something more. And maybe the school should just think of a new system... given the history of things gone wrong with bucks and then this crap.
And the Halloween stuff was just a delight.
This is the x book in the series but I never felt like I should have read the other books to understand. We get some explanation here and there.

If anyone needed telling that these kids were a modern American primary school equivalent of Robin Hood, it's writ enormously large right from the off here, when they all get told about the original and all wear appropriate costumes for Hallowe'en at school. It's a step further down the scale of subtlety, and this series has been getting close to touching bottom before now. Partly that is to do with the way our Robin thinks internally about all her friendships, and goings-on, and her reaction to the new kid in school here is rather overblown in that way. This leads to another heightened portrayal of middle school life, when the 'bonus bucks' – the prize tokens the teachers give out any time someone is less than a Ritalin-starved twonk – keep going missing. Is Robin losing her outlaw touch in not seeing the new boy as a prime suspect worth investigating, or is her maverick stance of making him one of the gang, even when he doesn't want to socialise, the right way to go? Ooh, problems, problems.

There's nothing inherently wrong with these books, and the way they are so damnably page-turning, even for reluctant readers, is always a plus. But I think this is where I and this series part, on reasonably good terms. Robin's diary-styled thinking about the whole situation, the copious friends that always kind of merge into one (except from the rapping two that you just want to throttle), and all the friendship-based machinations just feel a touch too forced for my tastes. There was almost something hectoring about how Robin discussed with herself whether her initial opinions on the new boy were prejudging much or not. And the whole bonus bucks thing, much as the 'king of the playground' aspect of the first sequel last time, are so far removed from what I know of going to, and working in, schools. So with no objections to the future books in this series, I doubt I'll be back for them. The weakness of the solution to this mystery reminds me of what I said previously about missing the cleverness of the original. They I am sure will remain interesting reads for the target audience, but flawed and brick-subtle with it.