This book was difficult for me to rate and I think it deserves an explanation. My kids actually loved this book. They thought it was hysterical. The story line was ehhh ok. Slightly over done. But in a modern day setting it made it highly enjoyable for my kids. I hated just about every second of reading this book. It was incredibly racist. I think that the author was trying to be sensitive to the existence of racism and would every now and then throw in a remark about how the systemic racism in the book was wrong, but then did nothing to make it better or rectify it or even make it a teachable moment. If this were an adult book I could maybe say the writer was trying to take a cynical or hyper realist POV and emphasize how little progress we have made socially in this area. But it’s a kids book and I think they deserve teachable moments and guidance. I had to constantly break and explain why things that were happening were morally corrupt and they shouldn’t behave that way. Even if it were not for the racism, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed this book much more. The author used the word said for almost every single exchange of dialogue. And the made up names and things felt like a mashup of random other words and syllables, that made it almost impossible to read things out loud without stumbling about. I’d love to give this a higher rating because of how my kids adored it, but I just can’t recommend letting children read this without someone being there to interject on morality side.