The Ripple Effect is a sweet story featuring Zella, the ultimate prankster and class clown. It started out a bit slow for my taste, but by the second half, I could barely put the book down and finished it all in one sitting.

The story is told in a smattering of alternating perspectives, which I think will appeal to some of my students who want to be reading longer books even though they enjoy the bursts of short stories; you get a slightly different take on the plot with each chapter and can combine them in your head to get the complete story.

Zella and her friends seem like they would fit right in with the kids in my school. Though, thankfully, pranks aren’t a thing for us - hopefully my kids will be inspired by the end of the story rather than the beginning!

I’d recommend this book to middle school and upper elementary students who like realistic fiction, humor, and friendship.

Zella is the class clown, and it’s a yearly tradition for the 6th graders to pull a prank. Zella enlists the help of her classmates when she comes up with an idea. What the others don’t know is that Zella has a bonus prank they don’t know about. When the bonus prank goes wrong, Zella is told it was dangerous. Because of the prank, the class now cannot go on their beach field trip. The principal tells Zella he will give her a second chance to redeem herself and leave the school better than she found it. How she does it is up to her. Does Zella come up with an idea that makes the principal happy?
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.