  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 01/01/2017 Fifth-grader Cleo Edison Oliver is full to bursting with entrepreneurial ideas. In this stand-alone sequel to Cleo Edison Oliver, Playground Millionaire (2016), Cleo and her best friend Caylee start a new business creating customized hair clips: Passion Clips, “Tell the world who you are!” Adopted as a baby, Cleo grows increasingly curious about her birth parents. What’s it like to look like your parents? Cleo has brown skin and dark “coily-curly” hair, while her parents have pale skin and blue eyes. She doesn’t think this is bad, but she does wonder about her other family. Even so, she’s nervous when her birth father makes contact. Should she meet him? What happens if he’s terrible? This energetic, realistic story focuses on family, school, church, and friends in a diverse community. Cleo herself is a bundle of go-getter enthusiasm; her winning spirit shines, no matter how many mistakes she makes. By the conclusion, Cleo learns that sometimes it’s more important to be a good friend than it is to be a successful CEO. - Copyright 2017 Booklist. School Library Journal - 02/01/2017 Gr 3–6—Cleo Edison Oliver and her best friend Caylee have started their own business, PassionClips, a personalized barrette service, and are promoting it to their school, churches, and family members. But the person who Cleo really hopes will take notice is Fortune A. Davies, an Oprah-like entrepreneur and television host who regularly features "kidpreneurs" on her show. Cleo was adopted—she's black, while her parents are white—and she has fantasized that Fortune is her biological mom. Although Cleo knows that Fortune can't be her birth mother, she still looks longingly at the African American people at her church and in her community and wishes that she didn't have to go to a different hair salon than her mom. What makes this adoption narrative stand out is the generally cheery tone; Cleo has a great life (albeit with some typical middle school drama), but Frazier expertly demonstrates that even the most loving adoption comes with some heartache. Reluctant readers will enjoy the accessible language and even pacing. VERDICT A good choice, especially for those seeking upbeat books about cross-cultural adoption.—Jessica Ko, Los Angeles Public Library - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
 |