Join the Club, Maggie Diaz

Maggie Diaz #1

by Nina Moreno, Courtney Lovett (Illustrator)

A humorous and heartfelt middle-grade debut by Nina Moreno with illustrations by Courtney Lovett, perfect for fans of One Day at a Time and Invisible Emmie.

Everyone in Maggie Diaz's life seems to be finding their true passion. The one thing that defines them as a person. Her best friends Zoey and Julian are too busy to spend time after school thanks to band and comics club. Mom is finishing her last semester in college. And of course, perfect older sister Caro has her sports and tutoring club.



So Maggie cooks up a plan to try all the clubs she can! But trying to fit in with type-A future leaders, gardening wizzes, and the fearless kids in woodshop is intimidating, exhausting, and seriously confusing. And when Maggie ends up disappointing her friends, she realizes that juggling school, friends, and all of her after-school activities isn't what she expected. Finding herself might just require some surprising help and possibly a little magic from the bruja next door.

Genres: Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Family, Fiction, Audiobook, Latinx, Contemporary

240 pages, Hardcover

Published May 17, 2022

About the author

Nina Moreno writes books that are somewhere between Southern fiction and a telenovela. A University of Florida graduate, she lives with her family by a swamp outside Orlando where she enjoys listening to carefully curated playlists, hunting through thrift stores, and drinking too much Cuban coffee. She is the author of Don’t Date Rosa Santos (Disney, 2019), Our Way Back to Always (Little Brown YR, 2021), and the Maggie Diaz series (Scholastic, 2022/2023), and has participated in a number of anthologies including Reclaim the Stars, a YA anthology of genre-blending fiction

Reviews

[Afoma (Reading Middle Grade) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Join the Club, Maggie Diaz is a lively, engaging debut about finding your place and passions when everyone else seems to be miles ahead in the game. Enriched by Maggie’s warm Cuban-American family, fun illustrations, Maggie’s hilarious commentary, and an undeniably relatable plot, this one will appeal to middle graders who love funny books. A fun, funny, and relatable MG debut!

Read my full review on my blog.

Many thanks to Scholastic for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Ashley Urquhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it! Even as an adult, I felt like I could relate to Maggie’s desire to find “her thing”. She’s a great main character and I loved the cast of supporting characters as well. This book is just fun and from what I could tell, the artwork is great too. I absolutely adored Moreno’s first book and her Middle Grade debut didn’t disappoint. She does a great job sharing a glimpse of what it’s like living in an Hispanic American household. I’ll definitely be checking out a finished copy!

Note: I received an ARC from Scholastic in exchange for an honest review.

[Eleanora · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book because sometimes I feel the same way as Maggie did and I like being able to relate to someone in a book. I also liked how Maggie had real life problems that you could actually have.

[Catfairy books · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book soothed my chaotic preteen soul🎃

[Alicia (A Kernel of Nonsense) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: This review is based on the ARC of this book, provided by the author, which does not influence my review.

Nina Moreno debuts with a fresh middle grade voice with Join the Club, Maggie Diaz. Courtney Lovett also provides fun and lively illustrations that bring this story to life. Maggie Diaz knows she isn’t the most reliable, her grades aren’t always the best, and she could be considered flighty. But seventh grade is going to be different. Maggie is determined to succeed and show she can take on more responsibility. In hopes of obtaining her first phone and more freedom, Maggie sets off on a journey to prove that she is mature and not a little kid any more. Maggie is an easy character to like. She’s incredibly determined and earnest. Although her plans do not always work out the way she imagined in her head, you can’t help but admire her ambition and gumption. I really enjoyed reading about Maggie and her family. Her abuela recently moved into her room, creating a new and sometimes chaotic new dynamic in the household. Maggie’s been spending less time with her best friends, Julian and Zoey, as both have their own interests and clubs they’ve joined. Feeling left out, Maggie decides to her first club, Future Leaders. Of course, Maggie quickly find outs how hard it is to juggle family life, school, and extracurriculars. Join the club, Maggie Diaz is a cute, coming-of-age middle grade novel perfect for tweens just beginning to discover who they are.

[Amy Holiday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read; I totally identified with Maggie even as she exhausted me. How *do* you know who you are? Do all these things you might vaguely be interested in define you? Alex had it right, I think. They don't.

Recently heard on the "Hacking Your ADHD" podcast that if you're just living your life deadline to deadline, are you really making time for things you're interested in? And then I finished this book. Hm. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.

Not to get too existential with this light middle grade novel, but it *is* kind of a deep question. Anyway, Maggie's enthusiasm was contagious, and the narrator really brought her to life.

[Marianne (Boricuan Bookworms) · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was so cute! Loved Maggie and her family, as well as the entire cast of characters. Her struggles to try and figure out how to define herself were so relatable even to me. I was also definitely reminiscing about the ways I grew up in a latinx household like Maggie's, with the responsibilities and expectations that they had of her.

I hope more kids Maggie's age get to read this book, it's honestly so good.

Also, the audiobook narrator was great. She did all the accents and each character had a distinct voice. Recommended.

[Ava Hamm · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was really good! I finished it in 2 days!!

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has such a cute art style!!!

[Susanne]

this is for a reader's report

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. A middle grade book I have from my classroom library. Also my “z” book for the a-z challenge.
This was really good! It had a lot of illustrations without being a graphic novel. I actually really loved the illustrations because they added more information past just what the book was saying. The main point of this book was Maggie trying to figure out who she is and what she likes in 7th grade.

[Adriana Kowalska · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really like this book. A lot of parts I can relate to the main character, Maggie. The illustrations are so pretty! I am going to by the second book now😂

[Gabi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a cute book and the adorable illustrations add so much to the story! This is a great story about a 12yo girl learning how to deal with feelings of insecurity and anxiety while trying to figure out what her interests are and who she is. Very relatable, no matter your age!

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

As Maggie starts middle school, she's not sure what her interests are. When her good friends Zoey and Julian get involved with their own activities, she feels even more pressure to find out what her passion might be. She also really wants a cell phone, and her parents promise she can have one if her grades are good. Things at home are fine, but quite different now that her abuela has moved in with the family after her husband's death, and Maggie has a six month ofld brother. Not only that, but her mother is determined to finish up her accounting degree, which means that Maggie has to step up to help around the house, especially when her father has a job that takes him out of town for extended periods of time. Older sister Caro runs cross country, and is busy with high school, so Maggie starts investigating all of the clubs at school. She starts with Futue Leaders, tries gardening, wood shop, and other activities, and also tries to support her friends. She has trouble focusing on any one thing, and time management is a struggle, which leads to poor grades. Since she won't get a phone unless she improves these, she tries a new tactic, joining cross country late in the season.
Strengths: Part Elle of the Ball , part Calli Be Gold, this is a realistically humorous look at one girl's attempts to have a great middle school experience. Maggie does a great job at trying new things, but clearly needs a lot more support to figure out how to navigate all of her new activities. It's easy to forget that not all students have support at home even if things are generally good-- her family is busy with other activities, and since Maggie isn't really a problem, it's easy to forget that she needs help. Caro does step in to defend her sister, and things ease up a bit when the father is home, but families can be very busy! Maggie's frustration with having a smart watch with GPS so her parents can know where she is will ring true, as will her floundering with lots of different activities in order to find one that works. The illustrations in the E ARC aren't finished, but will add a lot to the final book, making this a good choice for the many middle grade readers who only want to read books with pictures.
Weaknesses: This seemed a tiny bit young for reasons I can't quite elucidate, and I can't see how Maggie would be allowed on the cross country team for just the final race of the year, or how she would leave the course in the middle of the race to go somewhere else. I coached cross country for nine years, and can't imagine that ever happening, although it does of course make for a funny scene. As a librarian, I took a little umbrage at the service group working in the library "to weed out old books that stink like mildew and shelve new ones" since I spend an inordinate amount of time smelling books in my library, and the worst smell mine accheive is "grandma's living room".
What I really think: I will probably buy this for fans of Nat Enough and Invisible Emmie, since it is upbeat and has Kids Doing Things, although I wish there were some books about students juggling activities with boys as the main characters, or that followed boy and girl siblings who were closer in age. Try as I might, even if I recommend this book to boy readers, many will not pick it up just because a girl is on the cover.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maggie is excited for 7th grade to start because her best friends have been busy with camps all summer. When she gets to school, their camps have translated into clubs, and Maggie feels behind already. So, she joins Future Leaders to see if that's her thing, but it's all so new. How can she fit in, keep her friends, and get good grades while sharing her room with her Abuela and proving her responsibility to her mother so she can get a phone and be allowed to bike farther away from home? A super realistic book about friendship and finding yourself. Super fast read. From the cover and length, I thought Maggie would be in elementary school. I think more 4th and 5th graders will read this, but it would be a good one for more reluctant middle school readers too. With some illustrations throughout and friendship and school drama, it's similar to the Invisible Emmie series.

[TheNextGenLibrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Turns out responsibility sometimes comes with serious perks.”
🎒
Maggie Diaz is feeling a bit left behind. Her friends got to go away for adventures this summer while she was stuck at home sharing a room with her abuela. Her friends start school already involved in several extracurricular activities. Her mom is finishing school and her “perfect” older sister is a tutor and is good at all sports. Maggie’s idea is to go out for ALL the clubs to see which ones she likes, but in the process ends up alienating everyone.
🏫
I absolutely adored @ninamoreno YA books so when I saw she had a MG debut I had to grab it. What a fun, cute book that had adorable illustrations and relatable content about finding your place in school. Great queer rep too for a MG title. Can’t wait to get this one for my library!

Middle school setting/characters but read like upper elementary. 3.25 ⭐️

[Jenny Ashby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, but not exactly what I thought it would be. I was expecting Maggie to join all the clubs all at once and that we'd be treated to seeing her probably fail at all of them. And when she finally did find her thing, I wasn't sure where that came from because there was not really any lead up to that. I also expected her sister's new relationship to be an issue since their mom was making a big, secret code, deal about it. Better that it WASN'T a big deal, but it was foreshadowed differently. Aside from those concerns, this is a sweet story of a girl finding her place with her friends and in her middle school.

[Jennybeast · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. I love the heavy mix of illustrations and text, which make it so appealing to dive into. I love Maggie's chaotic energy and very relatable experiences as someone who's trying her best while struggling with forgetfulness and the overwhelm that is life with family and 7th grade and friends and a new baby sibling and a dad away for work and a mom in school and sharing a room with her abuela and a perfect older sister setting the bar. It's a lot, and it feels like her friends are so solid in their interests and Maggie is just trying to figure herself out. What does she even like?

[Valerie Michel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book about a middle schooler figuring out what she likes, doesn't like, grades, friends, and family dynamics. There is a brief mention of Maggie's sister (Cora) having feelings for a girl, Alex, at school. The mom is encouraging Cora to explore her options when it comes to having feelings for people. There are pictures in the book that give it a graphic novel feel. This may reach a more reluctant reader.

[Stacy Mozer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maggie is starting middle school and it feels like everyone she knows has a passion except her. When her friends become busy with their new clubs. Maggie decides to join as many as possible until something sticks. Maggie is a great character and I love the way she navigates getting to know herself and her interests. Illustrations add to the narrative in this graphic novel hybrid. I think even kids as young as third grade will love Maggie's story.

[Abigail Aldas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is more of a 3.5, but I don’t know how to do that. I mostly skimmed through this one, looking at the images. But from what I can tell, this was a good book. Maggie’s determination to change herself and to her plan is inspiring. And Cairo is really cool in my opinion, even though her and Maggie have their disputes. But, it sadly didn’t spark my interest. I couldn’t bring myself to actually read it, so I skimmed it. Luckily the images were helpful as to what was going on. I would recommend this book to anyone.

[Catharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't too keen on this at the start, but I think Maggie gained in likeability at the story progressed. It certainly has connections for those students trying to figure out who they are and navigate changing relationships as new interests and friend groups emerge. I think students will like the illustrations interspersed throughout.

[Alexandra Alessandri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Join the Club, Maggie Diaz! The MG voice is spot on, and Maggie's character was thoroughly relatable! The family dynamics provides a mirror to many, including myself and my son, but I also loved Maggie's quest to find herself. Kids ages 8-12 will relate to the characters and storyline in this funny and witty contemporary MG.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Turns out responsibility sometimes comes with serious perks.”

“Sometimes it feels like I have too many thoughts and they start bumping into each other and turning into worries.”

“No one tells you that to figure yourself out, sometimes you have to leave stuff behind.”

[Cassie Crowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this book.I like how it shows how stressful it is to figure out who want to be and the struggles of family life and the troubled friend groups and responsibility.It also has humor in it and I like that.👩🏼‍🔬👩🏻‍🎨👮🏻‍♀️👷‍♀️👩‍🎤👩🏻‍🍳👩🏼‍🌾👩🏽‍💼👩🏻‍🚀👩‍🏭👩🏻‍🚒👩🏾‍🔧👩🏻‍⚕️👩🏻‍⚖️👩🏻‍🏫🕵🏻‍♀️

[Laura Beam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute and quick read. Definitely had really great middle school vibes. I loved the family dynamics, the subtle queer rep, the cute friends, and all of the hobbies and clubs that Maggie tried out in her search to find her own thing. Definitely will recommend to 6th graders next year.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun middle school book where Maggie finds her true passion. It seems everyone else has something that drives them and identifies them. Maggie has nothing! Find out if she finds that one true passion while being thrown curve balls that seem negative but in reality are positive.

[McKayla C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story ! I think everyone has a time where they try to figure out where you belong and when you have so many passion as but how do you have time to balance all of them . I loved the way they talked about the relationship of a family and friends of a junior high kid.

[Cara (Wilde Book Garden) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, sweet, and featuring great art! (I also think it's super interesting that the illustrations don't show things that happen in text - they actually tell their own parts of the story!)

This also seems like it would be a good bridge book between chapter books and MG.

CW: Anxiety

[Mikayla Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5
The characters were decent, but they could have been even better with further development. Aside from a few minor issues, the atmosphere and writing were good. The plot was interesting and easy to follow, although feeling a little hectic at times.