By: Rebecca Caprara

It’s a perfect day for making mischief.

Sixth-graders have always said farewell to Kettleby Elementary with a class prank, and the school has always allowed itas long as they play by the rules. Class clown Zella Trudi is determined to think up the greatest prank of all time. Maybe then, everyone will quit laughing at funny Internet videos and start laughing at her jokes again. But when her great idea goes a little too far, the whole class is punished, and it’s all her fault. Can she turn it aroundand save her family’s struggling ice cream shopbefore it’s too late?

Redemption, friendship, and a remarkable chain of kindness tastes even sweeter than the Trudi family’s famous raspberry ripple ice cream in this warm-hearted middle grade novel.

Meet the Author Recording with Rebecca Caprara at TeachingBooks.net.

If you like this book, youll enjoy these:
Worst-Case Collin
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Downloadables

Download the CoverDownload the Readers’ Group Guide

Author & Illustrator

Rebecca Caprara, author

Rebecca Caprara has been writing stories since she was a little girl. What she enjoys the most is writing across genres and form for middle-grade readers. Her middle-grade novels include Worst-Case Collin and The Magic of Melwick Orchard. She is also the author of the young adult novel Spin.

Read more about Rebecca.

Awards & Honors

• Coming soon!

Editorial Reviews

Children’s Literature

Sometimes the smallest gesture can make a significant difference in the way someone looks at life. Zella, Bowie, and Janae are best friends in their small town of Kettleby. Like most small towns, everyone knows everyone else, and the village raises the kids. The elementary school in Kettleby has a tradition that the sixth-grade class creates a gift for the school to express their appreciation for all the hard work done by the employees. This includes not just teachers but also bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and custodians. Over the years, this tradition has taken on the appearance of a prank, committed by the sixth grade in their last week of school. Zella feels a great responsibility to be the student who creates the Prank, with a capital P. She knows that her classmates, especially Bowie and Janae, will support her idea and help to carry it out. Zella tends to have innovative ideas, but lacks good results in carrying the ideas to fruition. When the Super Prank fails, Zella has to find a way to redeem herself with family, friends, and fellow students. She cannot imagine that these are the very people who will help her find redemption. Capara has allowed the upper elementary and middle school reader an opportunity to know several main characters and shows the reader how their lives intersect. This 400-page book also offers a great community vibe that will encourage kids to take part in community events.

Kirkus Reviews

A small-town tween dreams of leaving her mark before moving on to middle school.
Italian American Marzella Trudi lives in Kettleby, a former mill town in the Northeast, where her mom runs the family ice cream shop, Trudi Treats. But Nan died, Pops dementia is getting worse, and the shop might be in trouble. Zella also worries about being left out and left behind; her best friends, Janea and Bowie, have their interests in fashion and music, respectively, and class clown Zella feels pressure to leave her own mark by coming up with the best sixth grade prank ever. When she does come up with a great idea, a mishap leads to disaster. Given a second chance, Zella redeems herself through what she dubs the Ripple Effect: performing acts of kindness and challenging others to pay them forward, thus having an exponential effect on Kettleby and its residents. Zella is the central narrator, but Janea, Bowie, fifth grade journalist Shelby, new kid Declan, and others each have several brief chapters, offering readers insights into their own struggles, such as Bowies parents divorce and Declans sisters health concerns. The takeaway messagekindness is its own sort of magicis reminiscent of Kelly Barnhills The Ogress and the Orphans, and though Zellas story doesnt have the same mythic heft, a touch of something inexplicable and joyful brightens the tale. The cover art points to some racial diversity among the supporting cast.
An uplifting story of personal and community transformation.

Publishers Weekly

To secure her title as the class clown, sixth grader Marzella Trudi is determined to come up with the best class prank her small town of Kettleby has ever seen. With the help of best friends Bowie, a organized pianist, and Janea, a fashionista with a growing online presence, Zella attempts to generate the perfect idea; shes simultaneously concerned about her familys failing ice cream business and her grandfathers worsening dementia. Zella nally hits on a plan, but when the prank backres spectacularly, the whole class is punished, and Zella must nd a way to make amends. By utilizing alternating rst- and thirdperson narratorsincluding Zella, Bowie, andJanea, as well as other classmates and Kettleby residentsCaprara (Worst-Case Collin) underscores the importance of community in this saccharine paean to paying it forward. A leisurely buildup shis gears into rapid-re snapshotsdepicting community spirit and the importance of kindness and cooperation, making for a quiet small-town novel that eschews self-reection and drawn-out conict for tidy, sometimes passive solutions.

Details

Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-62354-324-2

Ages: 912
Page count: 400
51/2x 81/4

Publication date: February 18, 2025

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