Two 11-year-old children take on an unethical company.

Our main guy is named Maximilian J. Sterling. He doesn’t become Max until kindergarten. He was born to billionaire parents who wanted to protect him from greedy people and show him he had value outside of being wealthy. Our other 11 year old is Josie who experienced loss the moment she was born. You see, her mother died in childbirth, leaving her to be raised in poverty by her grieving father. His desire for his daughter is that she has more opportunities in life than he did.

These very different parents make a deal with a woman dressed all in black from the Whatnot Corporation. This company is responsible for creating well-behaved android children that allow rich kids to thrive in controlled environments. Max attends a school where he is surrounded by whatnots, and Josie is pretending to be a whatnot so that she may receive a better education than her father could afford. Life goes according to plan until Josie and Max find out the truth behind the Whatnot Corporation. Confused and determined, the pair set out to unravel a mystery that has them confronting the true meaning of friendship.

Clever plot, but this reader lost interest three quarters of the way into the book.

This is a quick read, but I'm not sure I would recommend it to a middle-grade classroom. While this book had an interesting plot, the theme of systemic poverty was not explained in a thorough way that made the book problematic. The resolution is very happy, and I don't think it solves the problems the characters faced in the book.

This is a great book for middle grade kids, especially 5th and 6th graders. A boy, Max, goes to school with Whatnots (robotic children) because his wealthy parents want him to be surrounded by nice children who will not bully him or set bad examples. Only there is something different about some of the Whatnots, including his best friend Josie. Maybe things are not what they seem. Real-life issues are explored in this book, including the fear and nervousness that comes with changing schools, growing up, and making new friends. The science fiction aspects of the story make it an interesting and fun read that kids will love.

I really enjoyed the voice if this book and the playful use of a narrator interspersed throughout but oof does this end up glossing over a lot of social issues. While a compelling page-turner thanks to mysterious veiled characters and a surprise twist, it's hard to walk away from the story feeling like the exploitation of low-income families can be framed as a heartwarming tale.
I don't know- I feel like I wouldn't recommend this to any young reader who is food or housing insecure because some content is triggering and a lot of takeaway seems to be that friendship and money fix everything. Which is probably true for anyone who has both. It's an interesting concept that ultimately misses the mark in dealing with the causes of and potential solutions for systemic poverty.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. All of the opinions given are my own and have been given nothing for my review.

Excellent, thought-provoking middle grade novel. It's hard to describe the plot without, frankly, giving it away. I'll keep to noting that the plot is intriguing, the pacing is excellent, an the characters are compelling and likeable. Themes covered include friendship, disparities between the wealthy and the poor, futurism, and the need for community.

I finished this book a few days ago and am still thinking about it. I think this is perfect for older kids, possibly even middle school. I think I need to read it again and see if I just missed some details or if they should have been ovvious to me. Margaret Peterson Haddix is certainly a talented author!

Interesting read but the constant narration interruption may throw off less confident readers. I understand why it was utilized but it poses potential obstacles for a child that isn't a confident reader but would otherwise be enthralled by the story.

This was a really unique, dystopian-like, middle grade novel. Max’s parents( like any other parents) wanted his childhood to be perfect. So when he went to kindergarten they had him surrounded by robots, or “whatnots.” Max had no idea because they looked like any other kid at school.
For years Max goes through elementary school alongside the whatnots. When the truth comes out about the “whatnots” he doesn’t know what to believe or know who is looking out for him. Great story and characters!
Middle grade children will enjoy this story! Lots of fun!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley foe this advanced reader copy.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Margaret Peterson Haddix, and the publisher for the ARC of this wonderful book.

Wow! What a page-turner!

Max and Josie have been best friends since kindergarten and then as they are able to leave for middle school Josie tells Max she will never be able to see him again because of the "whatnot" rules. Max is devastated and has not idea what these rules are. As Max starts to uncover information to find Josie and the "whatnot" rules, he learns how truly powerful friendship is as she is looking for him too.

What a great middle school read that I can't wait to recommend to my students.

I wanted to read this book because I really liked The Missing series by this author. The concept of a school filled with life like androids sounded intriguing. The book started off fairly well and was interesting at first, but soon went downhill when I found out Josie was not really an Android but was forced to live at the school and pretend to be one since her family was poor. It bottomed out completely when it was revealed that all the kids were in the same situation except for the Max, the one rich privileged kid. The final nail in the coffin was the owner of the whatnot corporation saying she did it because she never had a friend, paying off the families who had to suffer, and everyone lived happily ever after. Any possible lessons points about friendship and privilege were completely lost on me.

This is the story of Max and Josie, two best friends in 5th grade who come from very different backgrounds. All wealthy kids go to school surrounded by robots called whatnots that are meant to teach kids how to act properly and grow up with manners. However, everything is not as it seems, and Max and Josie both set out on a quest to find out the truth.

I thought this book was well written - I've been a fan of Margaret Peterson Haddix's work for a long time. The message of the story came through strongly as well.

An enjoyable middle-grades story about what it means to be a friend and the importance of believing in yourself. The story follows Max, a real child, whose parents have sent him to a school full of whatnots - androids - in hopes that he grows up knowing his worth is not based on his family’s money.

This book was highly enjoyable. I can see it appealing to many readers. The idea of androids is so interesting! However, many major issues are only briefly mentioned or outright ignored. Mira should have been punished for her highly illegal, immoral deeds. Instead, she was completely forgiven. The kids-pretending-to-be-whatnots-pretending-to-be-kids should have been rectified. Instead, they got some money. I thought the message was money can't buy fix everything, but in the end, money fixes everything.

For all its faults, I truly loved the story of the whatnots. When the narrator mentions reading the legal mumbo jumbo, I wished it was included in the book! I wanted to know all of the secrets of the whatnots and the specifics of what was really going in. I would have loved to read more about the kids-pretending-to-be-whatnots-pretending-to-be-kids. At one point, whatnot training is mentioned. What does that mean? I would love to know!

#netgalley

Such a great concept and wonderfully written, as we have come to expect from Margaret Peterson Haddix! Rich parents long for their children to grow up "normal" but how to do that when you have so much and others might be jealous of you for that? Send your child to school with robots, created to look and act like "normal" children. There's a twist, as always, but I won't spill it!

Absolutely a marvel! Gets a rare 5 star rating from me!

This is charmingly written, engaging, very cute **capitalist apologia**. The messages of the book are really mixed up. Truly horrible, indefensible, egregious things happen to the poor children in this book, their families, and their communities—but in the end it's all fine because [**spoiler**]they've moved to the middle class and a family of billionaires are their friends[**/spoiler**]. No structural change to make sure horrible things aren't happening to every other poor community in the country/world is mentioned, and it seems like everyone thinks it's totally fine for billionaires to exist while poor mothers die in underfunded hospitals nearby (explicitly, this is the dichotomy). This probably started out from interesting thoughts about income stratification and automation, but its solutions were nowhere near what was necessary for the world it created. It suffers from a problem in trying to make everyone "nice" in a world where rich families stand blithely by while poor families suffer and are destroyed for their benefit—something that is not nice at all.

This is a great book for middle grades. It explores what it means to be a friend, what it means to be real, and what friendship is. It's also a page-turning mystery like all of Margaret Peterson Haddix' amazing books. Despite it being new, it feels like reading a classic childhood story like Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator or Alice in Wonderland. This book will surely be enjoyed for years by students just exploring their place in the world.

I'm grateful to MPH and NetGalley for letting me review an early proof of this book. It is a wonderful story that will be a great upper-elementary book club book!