Homerooms and Hall Passes

Gr 3-6–Five young adventurers—an apprentice wizard, a barbarian, a thief, a paladin, and an elf from Bríandalör—spend one day a week away from their usual quests, playing a very unadventurous role-playing game in which they are suburban middle school students. When Devis, the thief, steals a cursed treasure, the five adventurers find themselves transported to the actual middle school of their game and take on their roles—a nerd, an overachiever, a loner, a weirdo, and an exchange student. The only way to break the curse and return home is to do the near impossible: survive and thrive in middle school. Each chapter starts with excerpts from the game books including teacher characteristics, student characteristics, and more information from a sociological perspective. There is a lot of middle grade humor, poking fun at the horrors of middle school and honing in on the fact that everyone feels like an outsider or imposter. Though the cover implies a diverse group, there’s a lack of diverse cultural representation in the text. There is a map located at the front of the book.