What do you think?
Rate this book
Team Awkward #2
Leah vs. Art
Leah’s ambitious extracurricular plans cause trouble in this second book in the Team Awkward middle grade series that’s The Baby-Sitters Club meets Dork Diaries.
How organized, driven Leah was born into her family, she’ll never know. They’re as different as can be. For example, while she’s trying to finish unpacking boxes from their move and get to bed at a decent time, her parents are listening to indie rock records and eating ice cream sundaes. Sometimes it feels like she’s the only responsible one in the house!
So when her parents sign her up for art club—to “loosen her up” and “get her creative juices flowing”—Leah decides to ditch in favor of Quiz Bowl, which meets at the same time. But as she secretly attends Quiz Bowl and lies to her parents, her competitive spirit begins to take over, threatening her scheme and her friendships.
How organized, driven Leah was born into her family, she’ll never know. They’re as different as can be. For example, while she’s trying to finish unpacking boxes from their move and get to bed at a decent time, her parents are listening to indie rock records and eating ice cream sundaes. Sometimes it feels like she’s the only responsible one in the house!
So when her parents sign her up for art club—to “loosen her up” and “get her creative juices flowing”—Leah decides to ditch in favor of Quiz Bowl, which meets at the same time. But as she secretly attends Quiz Bowl and lies to her parents, her competitive spirit begins to take over, threatening her scheme and her friendships.
176 pages, Hardcover
Published June 17, 2025
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 17, 2025
My daughter and I read this one together and we both thought it was cute with important messages for children ages 8-12. Leah is the Type A daughter of a Type B family. She keeps a routine schedule, is competitive, loves school, and strives to rack up accomplishments. When Leah’s family encourages her to embrace her creative side and relax a bit, Leah comes up with a plan of her own. Written with fun and relatable language, this chapter book will definitely appeal to early middle grade readers.
Thank you Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing and NetGalley for the early e-copy! This honest opinion and review are from my daughter and myself.
Thank you Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing and NetGalley for the early e-copy! This honest opinion and review are from my daughter and myself.
March 14, 2025
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
After their rather harrowing first day of school in Jojo vs. Middle School, Team Awkward is back. This time, the book focuses on Leah, who is glad to be in one place in Virginia after spending her childhood following her father's assignments as a dentist in the military. Leah is rather irked and embarrassed by her parents, who are not as organized and focused as she is. In fact, they think she needs to loosen up, and don't want her to add Quiz Bowl to her otherwise packed extracurricular calendar, even though they should know that it would look good on her college applications. She starts attending art club with her neighbor, Ben, who shares her biracial identity, although he is Black and Lao while she is white and Thai. Since Quiz Bowl and art club meet on the same day, she plans to ditch art club, and ropes both Ben and her older brother Steven to cover for her. She gets very invested in art club, and even takes the group to the frozen yogurt shop where Steven works for extra practice, even challenging rival Finston Prep to a test match over cones! When Leah becomes a little too intense about Quiz Bowl, it causes problems with Jojo, Izzy, and Ryan. Ben let's her deception slip right before the big competition, but Leah's easygoing parents don't punish her for ignoring their directives, and go to watch her at the meet, which has some rocky events. At this time, I can't find any information about a third volume.
Strengths: It's great to see a student who is focused and determined to better herself, even when her parents don't think she needs to do so much! It's a nice generational conflict, and a bit of a switch from parents always being the responsible ones. There aren't a lot of books about Quiz Bowl competitions (McLean's Catch Us if You Can, Egan's Golden Ticket, Grabenstein's The Smartest Kid in the Universe, Farr's Margie Kelley Breaks the Dress Code) and I certainly had friends who were involved. , so that was a fun inclusion. The brief interactions with Ben were interesting, and I wish we had seen more of him.
Weaknesses: I am never a huge fan of students lying to their parents and not being punished. The parents should have discussed the reasons for art more thoroughly, but once Leah lied to them, there should have been punishments!
What I really think: This is a fun series for readers who like books from different characters' perspectives, like Simon's The Cupcake Club or Kimmel's Forever Four.
After their rather harrowing first day of school in Jojo vs. Middle School, Team Awkward is back. This time, the book focuses on Leah, who is glad to be in one place in Virginia after spending her childhood following her father's assignments as a dentist in the military. Leah is rather irked and embarrassed by her parents, who are not as organized and focused as she is. In fact, they think she needs to loosen up, and don't want her to add Quiz Bowl to her otherwise packed extracurricular calendar, even though they should know that it would look good on her college applications. She starts attending art club with her neighbor, Ben, who shares her biracial identity, although he is Black and Lao while she is white and Thai. Since Quiz Bowl and art club meet on the same day, she plans to ditch art club, and ropes both Ben and her older brother Steven to cover for her. She gets very invested in art club, and even takes the group to the frozen yogurt shop where Steven works for extra practice, even challenging rival Finston Prep to a test match over cones! When Leah becomes a little too intense about Quiz Bowl, it causes problems with Jojo, Izzy, and Ryan. Ben let's her deception slip right before the big competition, but Leah's easygoing parents don't punish her for ignoring their directives, and go to watch her at the meet, which has some rocky events. At this time, I can't find any information about a third volume.
Strengths: It's great to see a student who is focused and determined to better herself, even when her parents don't think she needs to do so much! It's a nice generational conflict, and a bit of a switch from parents always being the responsible ones. There aren't a lot of books about Quiz Bowl competitions (McLean's Catch Us if You Can, Egan's Golden Ticket, Grabenstein's The Smartest Kid in the Universe, Farr's Margie Kelley Breaks the Dress Code) and I certainly had friends who were involved. , so that was a fun inclusion. The brief interactions with Ben were interesting, and I wish we had seen more of him.
Weaknesses: I am never a huge fan of students lying to their parents and not being punished. The parents should have discussed the reasons for art more thoroughly, but once Leah lied to them, there should have been punishments!
What I really think: This is a fun series for readers who like books from different characters' perspectives, like Simon's The Cupcake Club or Kimmel's Forever Four.
June 19, 2025
LEAH VS. ART brings back the Team Awkward as introduced in Jojo Vs. Middle School, this time focusing on the super competitive and focused Leah. Leah’s parents want her to explore her creative side, so they sign her up for an art club. This is a problem for Leah since the sessions conflict with the Quiz Bowl team, which meets at the same time. Leah comes up with a plan to attend Quiz Bowl practices in secret and becomes more and more invested in the team. When her competitiveness goes a little too far, she finds she may have put her friendship with the Team Awkward gang at risk.
A book featuring a super focused student with very relaxed parents was a nice switch from the much more common portrayal of students bristling under the unrealistic high expectations of adults. The characters and themes in this book are easily relatable for middle grade readers and with under 200 pages, this will capture the attention of lots of readers.
A book featuring a super focused student with very relaxed parents was a nice switch from the much more common portrayal of students bristling under the unrealistic high expectations of adults. The characters and themes in this book are easily relatable for middle grade readers and with under 200 pages, this will capture the attention of lots of readers.
December 29, 2025
3.5 stars for book 2. This one was harder for me, because Leah was pretty unhappy for much of it, and lying/hiding things/acting too competitive. It was good to see inside her personality, and she may border on being OCD/anxious/autistic. I liked seeing inside her, but it wasn't fun! There are some fun parts, still, and it was good to see the inner workings of her family. She learns to do better by the end, but still be herself while stretching a little!
September 7, 2026
This book isn't my favorite in the series so far. I have been enjoying reading this series. However I felt that Leah should have had to give up quizbowl after lying to her parents and her parents should have found out earlier that Leah was skipping art club. It would have been fun to talk about art more and not have Leah always in something super structured. You can tell she struggled with something more unstructured and creative and maybe she would have found over time she really loved art.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 3, 2026
I like how Leah is strict and organized while her mom is more laid back and is always trying to get Leah to loosen up. I think it’s funny how Leah could sometimes be the only responsible person in the house.
June 22, 2025
3.75 I liked Leah's growth.
September 18, 2025
I love this series!!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews