Millicent Min, Girl Genius -- Lisa Yee

Millicent Min is a Genius.She's eleven years old and a junior in high school. She was on The Tonight Show at age two, where, when asked to recite the names of the U. S. Presidents, she asked Jay Leno if he would like to hear them in alphabetical order or numerical order.

While she's sad that school is out for the year, she's excited about taking her first college-level course, even though her parents refuse to let her take a math course -- they want her to take something for fun. She decides on Classic and Contemporary Poetry. Then, in the spirit of "more fun", without any prior consultation, her mother enrolls her in a junior volleyball league. 

Millicent does not excel at sports.

More things start going wrong: Her mother starts showing signs of grave illness, her grandmother drops a bombshell about leaving for Europe and she is asked to tutor Stanford Wong, her mortal enemy. Suddenly, the summer isn't looking so great.

Millicent Min begins her story with this:

I have been accused of being anal retentive, an overachiever, and a compulsive perfectionist, like those are bad things. My disposition probably has a lot to do with the fact that I am technically a genius.

I literally read those two sentences to every single person who walked through the room while I was reading this book. I even forced it on my Library Director this morning.

I LOVED IT. Millicent has a fantastic voice -- her humor ranges from deadpan to supremely geeky, she's amazingly self-absorbed, somewhat insensitive and when it comes to social situations, she's pretty much an idiot. She's adorable.