Ask Emma

Ask Emma #1

by Sheryl Berk, Carrie Berk

Emma Woods knows just how to fix all her peers' problems—or so she thinks—in this first book in the brand-new middle grade series Ask Emma, from the bestselling creators behind the Cupcake Club series!

Thirteen-year-old Emma Woods can't help minding other people's business. She can't stand to see her two best friends Maizie and Harriet fighting, or a teacher at Austen Middle School assigning homework over a holiday weekend, or the student government election being hijacked by the resident mean girl. She starts a blog, "Ask Emma," in the hopes that her peers will write in and ask for her help—and Em can make her voice heard. But Em's learning that not everyone wants her help. Despite her good intentions, she's creating even more trouble! She soon realizes that "fixing" everyone's problems might not be as easy as she first thought. . . .

This book will include an appendix on cyberbullying resources.
 
 

Genres: Middle Grade, Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published May 1, 2018

About the author

Sheryl Berk is an American writer and editor best known as the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Soul Surfer, written with Bethany Hamilton and later adapted into a feature film. She has co-written eight bestselling celebrity biographies, including Heart to Heart, Wise Girl: What I’ve Learned About Life, Love, and Loss, and The Rules According to JWOWW. A graduate of Syracuse University, Berk served as entertainment editor for McCall’s and as editor-in-chief of Life & Style Magazine. She also co-authored three popular children’s and young adult series—The Cupcake Club, Fashion Academy, and Ask Emma—with her daughter Carrie Berk, and is the author of the Dance Divas series, which inspired the off-Broadway musical Dance Divas Nutcracker.

Reviews

[Dena McMurdie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss K snatched this book the second I opened the envelope. She devoured it in two days. Miss K loves technology and she helps me out with this blog from time to time, so this book was right up her alley.

After she finished with it, I read it as well. It's a short, quick read that deals with bullying and cyber-bullying in middle school. When Emma starts an advice blog for her seventh-grade classmates, she doesn't expect some of the reactions she gets.

While her advice is always well-intentioned, it doesn't always pay off for the recipient. On top of that, someone has taken notice of her blog online, and is leaving mean comments.

The thing I liked about Ask Emma is the way Emma handles her bullies. She doesn't back down and she doesn't quit doing what she loves because an anonymous person is being cruel. Instead, she takes the proper steps to deal with her bullies. She talks to trusted adults (teachers and parents) and faces her critics head on. Both are difficult things for kids (and adults) to do.

Things wrapped up a little too cleanly to be entirely believable. I've seen too many stories where everything ends in a rosy way, but that isn't always the case in real life.

Regardless, this is a sweet book with great information that can inspire kids to deal with bullies in an appropriate way.

Content: Cyber-bullying

Source: Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book.

[Emma Knights · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rated as the kids book it is. I had picked this up in an op shop sale. It's a short, easy read that has some lovely insights on bullying (specifically cyber-based). Based on Jane Austen's Emma.

[grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel bad hating on a book about stopping cyber bullying, but this book was really bad. Emma was a very irritating protagonist. I found myself agreeing with the mean comments her classmates posted about her. She IS nosy and IS too aggressive about giving advice and she DOES think she's better than everyone else. She doesn't really ever consider other people, she thinks about herself and then makes up excuses to avoid owning up to her own shortcomings. Her experience being cyberbullied is also highly unrealistic. Cyberbullying is a common problem for middle schoolers, sometimes its an issue that follows a person for many years. Being cyberbullied can feel isolating and cruel. Emma's experience was too cleanly wrapped up, and it made it seem like ending cyberbulling was as easy as asking people to stop. In real life we all know that to not be true. Realistically, the blog post Emma made about ending cyberbullying would've merely acted as fuel to the fire, more content for her classmates to make fun of. The unrealistic portrayl of a real issue that takes a serious toll on many student's lives is why this book gets 2 stars, also that fact that Emma is very annoying.

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emma is a 13-year-old seventh grader who loves to give advice, whether or not it's asked for. She decides to start an Ask Emma column, so she can make herself available to all of her classmates at Austen Middle School, but quickly discovers that she's a bit tone deaf in the process; she tends to push her best friends into doing things her way. She even tries to get the cute new guy, Jackson Knight, to join all the groups she thinks he should and tell her all about himself, but he gives a little pushback, which adds to his mystery. Emma starts getting some negative comments on her blog, and things start going haywire in Emma's real world, too. When a hurtful picture of Emma starts making the rounds around the school, she decides to nip a potential cyberbully in the bud and takes action.This is the first book in a new series from The Cupcake Club authors Carrie Berk and Sheryl Berk, and it left me a little wanting. Emma never really sees how self-absorbed she is, or apologizes for the things she does to her best friends. Her friends turn their backs on her when another student that Emma tries to "help" lies to make herself look good, but she never has that aha! moment when she examines her own behavior. A few negative blog comments and one mean picture become an overblown cyberbullying campaign, which, in this day and age, is forward thinking - catch cyberbullying in its early stages, before it becomes something out of control - but her related blog entry makes it sound like she endured a hateful campaign where she was bullied day and night. This one is a little out of touch; maybe an additional purchase where the authors are popular.

[Paige V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review from my little sister Laly (11):

Emma always loved helping people and fixing problems. And whenever she felt a tingling at her fingertips, she knew a good idea was coming. One day, she came up with the idea to start an advice blog for the Austen middle school seventh grade. Shortly after she started the blog, she met a boy unlike anybody else. He wasn't part of any club and had no intentions to; he was very mysterious. While she struggled to figure out who he was and whether or not she liked him, someone posted mean comments on her blog. They told her to quit her blog and stop putting her nose in other people's business. At some point, it got so bad that this person blasted an insulting photo of her to the entire seventh grade. Will Emma overcome this humiliation and figure out who this mysterious boy is?

The "Ask Emma" book was part of the September book box from @betweenthebookendsbox, perfectly matching the theme "Booking into a new school year."
A mother-daughter author duo wrote the quick read but important one.
This book displays an essential theme about cyberbullying: how hurtful cyberbullying can be to other people. At the end of the book, you can find bullying resources.

Emma is a quirky character who would make an excellent friend. She is tenacious and conscientious. She is fearless in standing up for what is right. The mysterious boy was an interesting character and my favorite.

This book would be perfect to give to 5th- 7th graders.

[Tricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did a speed read through this one to see which collection I should put it into at my library and now I kind of regret ordering it at all. I'm putting this one firmly in the 4th and 5th grade collection, even through the protagonist is in junior high, because the language is very elementary, I think a junior higher would find it very "baby-ish."

A lot of the references felt off, this definitely felt like something written by someone who went to junior high in a different era. At one point, the "new boy" tells the main character he's shocked she's going to cheer leading try outs, because "she's not like other girls", and I almost threw the book. Especially when Emma takes this as a compliment instead of calling him on that nonsense, because what's wrong with other girls, what's wrong with cheerleaders, why are we still enforcing these ridiculous stereotypes with our children?!

I did appreciate the tips in the back about what to do when you're being cyber bullied, but didn't feel like the actual representation was at all like what I went through even 15 years ago, in the infancy of social media, and it's certainly not like the cruelty my own junior higher has experienced online.

Out of touch all around.

[Abby K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before this book I was having a tough time finding a heartfelt story for my age group. Then, I found Ask Emma. Ask Emma is a realistic fiction book about a girl named Emma with great advice. With her two best friends by her side, she will battle hardships at home and at school. She has her own blog and tries to help others the way she would like to be helped. Though sometimes she tends to help others more than she helps herself. I think this book is very interesting. It is a book that will pull at your heart strings and make you laugh. Ask Emma is very easy to follow and helps with the stress of shifting to middle school. However there are some key components that are missing. Emma pushes people to take her advice even when they don’t want it. Cheryl and Carrie Berk did not address this part enough. I would recommend this book to tweens or as a read aloud in fifth or sixth grade classrooms. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone younger or older than that because they wouldn’t be able to relate. This book is also great for readers who enjoy reading books that can feel hopeless yet clever and funny

[TheCloudRunner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm definitely not in the age demographic for this book but I got from bookcon because at the time I was working with children. I think it's great that they tackled cyber bullying. But I do wish Emma had also learned a lesson at leaving people alone when they don't want her help. She was too pushy and I don't understand how after all those things went wrong due to her "help", she would still put herself in other people's problem. I found Emma resilient (from the online bullying) but also quite bothersome and annoying when it came to everything else.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story hooked me in to wanting to read more about it. The first chapter started to pull me in to the story. I was able to picture everything that happened and it felt like I was right along with the journey with Emma. I had to put the book down and have a little brake for a minute then I started to finish my book.EMMA was my favorite character in the story.

The story kept moving along and I finished it in a few days.

I recommend this book for 8-12 for the age group.

[Carmen suero · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a girl who loves to help others but always does something wrong at some point she decided to start a blog to show she can help others without causing chaos. This book was more fiction but still showed the theme that helping others is a good thing even though it might not always go as planned.I kind of enjoyed this book but it wasn't on grade level.

[Maggie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is already dated and doesn’t sound like middle schoolers at all. It mentions Seventeen magazine, Madonna, and Zac Efron as cultural references that 12-year-olds make. I haven’t seen an kid read a magazine in at least 7 years. Also the stereotypes of cheerleaders I found very irritating and shallow. Hard pass for me.

[Esmeralda_L+L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty lame, but her other books are worse.

[WKPL Children's/YA Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Lori read this book and thinks it is a great read for 4th-6th graders! Cyber-bullying is the theme of this book and it is tackled head on!!! Read it and pass it on to your friends!

[Damalie Cisse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book and thought it was really interesting and I could really relate to this book.

[CHEYENNE · Rating 4 out of 5]

good for my 10 year old to see what can be challenging in middle school. bravery.

[hibah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4

[nat (taylor’s version)]

guys I read it awhile ago okay 😔

[Annabelle Kocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this series so far

[Lalaloopey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emma was such a disaster and an annoying perfectionist. She wants everyone to like her. But it's okay, she's cool.

[Hallie Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! She stopped the entire school from cyberbullying🏆

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first in a new series by a mother-daughter writing team, Ask Emma is a book that beautifully encapsulates middle school awkwardness. (And I don’t mean that negatively- this gave me flashbacks to my own junior high years and I was like “oh no, that one thing!”) Because let’s face it- middle school is the awkward years of your life. You’ve hit a new stage in life where the hormones have started to kick in and you’re trying to figure out how to navigate all this social weirdness and you just want to survive until the final bell.

Anyhoo, Emma loves helping people and solving problems, so she decides to start an advice blog on the school’s website. (With her computer teacher supervising, of course. We may have technology in schools now, but let’s not get too crazy.) Excited, she writes her introductory blog post and kicks back to wait for the responses to roll in.

And waits…

…and waits…

…and waits some more.

Yeah, these things don’t take off overnight.

While she’s waiting, she tries to play lab-partner matchmaker with her best friend, Boy A, Boy B, and the New Guy. She uses White Lie! It’s…not super-effective. Actually, it makes things worse. For her saving throw, she writes to herself anonymously and gives herself advice.

And now for the cyberbullying!

Her teacher told her that not everyone would agree with what she says, but still to have someone send her anon hate is devastating! And as her blog starts to take off, more and more people want her advice. (Okay, a lot of them just want to get out of class and skip homework assignments.) In school, everyone seems to genuinely love her blog and her advice, but online? The hate gets worse and worse. (The comments we get to see are age-appropriate for the book, but who’s to say the authors didn’t show us the really terrible ones?)

I can appreciate that this book tries to tackle the concept of cyberbullying for young readers. Most of Emma’s friends and family tell her the bullies are just jealous, insecure, unhappy. Her teacher explains that some bullies do it to look cool for others or just to get a reaction. One thing I wish the book had given more focus to is the fact that some people just get off on tormenting others; no rhyme or reason. She is advised to block and ignore the hurtful comments. In real life, that’s not guaranteed to work 100% of the time, but ultimately the advice is “Seek help. Find someone who will listen and will do something to help”. And for young readers, who are just starting to experience this stuff, that’s probably the best advice to give them.

[sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kid you not this was my favourite book at 11
So on one fine day i decided to read it again 3 years later

Um after reading it im not sure if this was the same book i read when i was 11 LOL

[Kati Polodna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received at ALA Midwinter 2018. Loved Emma and this Austen-inspired middle grade novel. Plus a great message about cyber bullying.

[Andréa]

Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher at ALA Midwinter 2018.