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The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt
Moxie Roosevelt Kipper has endured thirteen years of being an ordinary girl with an unordinary name. Now that she's entered boarding school, the time is ripe to reinvent herself. She'll become unusual, outlandish, unexpected, sassy - someone worthy of a name like "Moxie." But who exactly? From Mysterious Earth Goddess to Hale and Hearty Sports Enthusiast; from Detached, Unique, Coolly Knowing Individual to Assertive Revolutionary Activist, Moxie tries them all, while keeping her true talent for piano-playing a secret. But at boarding school, Moxie isn't the only one who isn't what she claims to be.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 26, 2010
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414 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
August 27, 2018
I could not stop reading the book. It pulled the reader in. It is a good book if you want excitement, humor, bravery and kindness. It has adventure about a girl who wants a new personality but cant choose which on. Overall, this was a fun book to read.
May 25, 2021
This was different from what I usually read but I genuinely loved this book, and found myself relating to it in a way. I would totally recommend this to anyone!
January 13, 2015
Nope, I was just a regular girl going to a regular boarding school. Except that everything I knew about boarding school came from Harry Potter books. (7)
Well, Moxie, you have one up on me. When I went to boarding school, pretty much my entire frame of reference was the Chalet School series...which, believe you me, did not turn out to be much like modern-day, non-Alps-y, reality.
Anyway. It's off to boarding school for Moxie, and it's an opportunity that she's determined not to let slide—up until now, she's been in school with people she's known her entire life. At boarding school, though, she's a blank slate, and she's determined that her name will not be the most interesting thing about her.
But Moxie makes a mistake. Well, several, actually, but the first one's a biggie: She lies. She's not sure yet who she wants to be, so she creates a number of characters...but those characters have all done things that are, shall we say, a little unlikely for your average thirteen-year-old. Crewed an ocean sloop (as the assistant to the swabber...) to help save sea cows. Been asked to play a drum solo on a hot band's upcoming album. Helped out Johnny Depp at a crucial moment... Really, even if the obvious hadn't happened, well, the obvious would have happened. (Moxie is, after all, only thirteen.)
What I like, though, is how understated the reaction is. Some people are justifiably angry. Others take it and roll with it. The book's probably closer to middle grade than YA, which means—holy moly hurray—that Moxie has the occasional crush but there's no focus whatsoever on boys and dates and love triangles. (The book passes the Bechdel test in spades.) So: very cute, very fluffy, nice antidote to all of the paranormal-love-triangle boarding-school books and the we're-so-rich-we-just-can't boarding-school books.
I must say, though. Moxie's 'triple' involves three separate rooms. At my boarding school, a triple was a slightly oversize double with an extra set of furniture shoved in.
Well, Moxie, you have one up on me. When I went to boarding school, pretty much my entire frame of reference was the Chalet School series...which, believe you me, did not turn out to be much like modern-day, non-Alps-y, reality.
Anyway. It's off to boarding school for Moxie, and it's an opportunity that she's determined not to let slide—up until now, she's been in school with people she's known her entire life. At boarding school, though, she's a blank slate, and she's determined that her name will not be the most interesting thing about her.
But Moxie makes a mistake. Well, several, actually, but the first one's a biggie: She lies. She's not sure yet who she wants to be, so she creates a number of characters...but those characters have all done things that are, shall we say, a little unlikely for your average thirteen-year-old. Crewed an ocean sloop (as the assistant to the swabber...) to help save sea cows. Been asked to play a drum solo on a hot band's upcoming album. Helped out Johnny Depp at a crucial moment... Really, even if the obvious hadn't happened, well, the obvious would have happened. (Moxie is, after all, only thirteen.)
What I like, though, is how understated the reaction is. Some people are justifiably angry. Others take it and roll with it. The book's probably closer to middle grade than YA, which means—holy moly hurray—that Moxie has the occasional crush but there's no focus whatsoever on boys and dates and love triangles. (The book passes the Bechdel test in spades.) So: very cute, very fluffy, nice antidote to all of the paranormal-love-triangle boarding-school books and the we're-so-rich-we-just-can't boarding-school books.
I must say, though. Moxie's 'triple' involves three separate rooms. At my boarding school, a triple was a slightly oversize double with an extra set of furniture shoved in.
September 17, 2011
The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt is a lot like Harriet the Spy; the plot follows basically the same arc, complete with lost notebooks galore. The subject matter is different, though, with Moxie constantly trying to find out how to be an interesting, unique person, never realizing that she's been interesting and unique all along. There was, however, a MAJOR mistake that disrupted my immersion in the novel. Firstly, they're thirteen. Yet Moxie's roommate has a tattoo and numerous piercings. The piercings, yes, are all right for minors. Tattoos, however. It's completely illegal to tattoo someone underage. What was the author thinking? A temporary tattoo I could understand, but when it was revealed that it was actually real, I was incredibly disappointed by how utterly wrong it was. The entire thing feels as if the characters should have been older, but the "thirteen" business was stuck in last minute for some reason. I would peg most of the characters at sixteen. However, the book admirably has no romance: the story is all about Moxie, proving that books about girls, for girls, don't have to be full of romance and boys. However, the author did have yet another female character who is horrible at math. Must all girls in YA be unable to do math? It's just perpetuating the idea that if you're female, you can be good at literature and other artsy things, but technical things and math? HOLD THE PHONES. This might not bother someone else, though, as it's one of my personal pet peeves.
June 23, 2017
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha this book was hilarious.
April 20, 2024
As a teenager trying to fit in, it was SO inspirational! I definitely recommend for others who have been in the same boat.
June 2, 2011
The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt
I thought I would toss this book at the first chapter, but I continued on in my quest of reading all of the 2012 DCF nominated books — and I'm glad I did. I think this may end up being my favorite. I love the young Moxie, a girl who thinks she is so plain that she needs a new persona and goes about inventing several. She is also a pianist, of a quality that I always wanted to be. She learns a lot at her first month of boaring school about personalities, lying, and variation. The lessons she learns could benefit all of us who make assumptions about "types" of people. We all may be guilty of this to some degree.
My only "complaint" may be whether thirteen year olds have as much maturity as Moxie and her friends have. They make complicated choices for their lives that are noble and altruistic. They navigate female friendships better than I have in my life at times. But all in all, I admire these girls and enjoy reading about their lives in boarding school.
I love this girl so much that I hope Elizabeth Cody Kimmel has many sequels for Moxie. I'll read them all. This book is for middle school readers and unfortunately boys may not like it or understand parts of it.
I thought I would toss this book at the first chapter, but I continued on in my quest of reading all of the 2012 DCF nominated books — and I'm glad I did. I think this may end up being my favorite. I love the young Moxie, a girl who thinks she is so plain that she needs a new persona and goes about inventing several. She is also a pianist, of a quality that I always wanted to be. She learns a lot at her first month of boaring school about personalities, lying, and variation. The lessons she learns could benefit all of us who make assumptions about "types" of people. We all may be guilty of this to some degree.
My only "complaint" may be whether thirteen year olds have as much maturity as Moxie and her friends have. They make complicated choices for their lives that are noble and altruistic. They navigate female friendships better than I have in my life at times. But all in all, I admire these girls and enjoy reading about their lives in boarding school.
I love this girl so much that I hope Elizabeth Cody Kimmel has many sequels for Moxie. I'll read them all. This book is for middle school readers and unfortunately boys may not like it or understand parts of it.
August 5, 2014
Moxie, at 13, is glad to finally be out on her own at boarding school. A fresh start; a time for her to be whatever or whomever she chooses to be. Maybe she'll even figure out a personality that fits her name a little better. So she sets out to do just that. Except that she doesn't just choose one personality to try on, she has several--a different one for almost every person she meets that has some quality she would like to emulate. As to be expected, it gets to be rather exhausting keeping up her many selves, and even her trusty notebook with details on how she should act for each one begins to be more of a burden than a boon. Then her notebook goes missing. You can probably guess what happens next.
I'll bet this would be a fun read for the targeted age group. How many wonder what it would be like to put on another personality, and become someone else altogether? It was well put together, and the unravelling, when it comes, helps Moxie grow up quite a bit. I didn't love it, but I could appreciate what Kimmel was trying to do. I think she got the message through with a fair amount of humour, and without beating you over the head with it. So, mission accomplished.
I'll bet this would be a fun read for the targeted age group. How many wonder what it would be like to put on another personality, and become someone else altogether? It was well put together, and the unravelling, when it comes, helps Moxie grow up quite a bit. I didn't love it, but I could appreciate what Kimmel was trying to do. I think she got the message through with a fair amount of humour, and without beating you over the head with it. So, mission accomplished.
October 10, 2011
With a name like Moxie Roosevelt Kipper people expect you to be impressive. But thirteen-year-old Moxie is more ordinary than she can stand. With a chance to start at a new boarding school and reinvent herself, Moxie decides that she will cultivate an incredible new personality. But what personality will that be? And what happens when Moxie cultivates five different personalities at the same time?
Nothing really new here and no serious look at any issues. The focus is on Moxie's path to finding that her true personality is the best one, not the personalities where she tries to be someone else and has to act fake, lie about her accomplishments, and exaggerate (it's often so ridiculous you feel like she must know it's not working.). However, I can see this as a fun read for girls who feel like they are trying to figure out who they really are. The cover is a little unfortunate and feels dated, but the writing is current and will appeal.
Nothing really new here and no serious look at any issues. The focus is on Moxie's path to finding that her true personality is the best one, not the personalities where she tries to be someone else and has to act fake, lie about her accomplishments, and exaggerate (it's often so ridiculous you feel like she must know it's not working.). However, I can see this as a fun read for girls who feel like they are trying to figure out who they really are. The cover is a little unfortunate and feels dated, but the writing is current and will appeal.
February 13, 2011
Moxie Roosevelt has always had a life far too ordinary and boring for her crazy name. When she goes to the Eaton Academy for Girls boarding school on a music scholarship, she decides this is the perfect time to try out being someone different, including Mysterious Earth Goddess (MEG), Hale and Hearty Sports Enthusiast (HHSE), and Detached, Unique, Coolly Knowing Individual (DUCKI). She keeps a notebook detailing which personality she tried out with different people, and after a few weeks she realizes keeping up with all of this is EXHAUSTING! When the notebook goes missing, she realizes that she's got to figure out who she really is... and maybe that's little bits of all of the other "people" she's been. Moxie is a funny, delightful character who makes a lot of mistakes "reinventing" herself, and also makes some good friends along the way. Lots of humor and fun, good for 6th grade and up.
August 26, 2011
A girl with a name like Moxie Roosevelt Kipper should have an amazing personality, right? Unfortunately, Moxie Roosevelt is afraid she's pretty darn bland. But she's heading off to start boarding school, where no one will know her, which gives her a clean slate & a chance to pick a really great personality to match her name. Upon arrival, Moxie Roosevelt meets some really great girls she hopes to be friends with. They are each very different, & she decides to try to model herself on each one while she's with them. Eventually, this gets really confusing. Suddenly, the different personalities she's trying on are starting to feel like a lot of...well, lying. Will Moxie Roosevelt figure out who she is? As with many of Kimmel's books, there's a lesson here about how the early teens are a time to figure out who you are - but that personalities aren't cut-and-dried like movie characters, & the best personality is the one you have when you're just being yourself.
October 22, 2011
Oh my goodness. I loved this book. I had so much fun reading it, and I absolutely adored Moxie and her friends and the whole set-up. The talent show and coming clean totally cracked me up. Although Moxie is 13 (and this is totally perfect for the story), this same story would have worked if the girls were 14 or 16 or 18. (Frankly, since I've never been to boarding school, there were a number of moments where I totally pictured my freshman dorm and the girls on my hall.) This should appeal to anyone who has ever tried to be someone else or even wished they could reinvent themselves. And honestly, haven't most girls thought about reinventing themselves when they went to a new school or camp or joined a club or even traveled somewhere that no one knew them? And some of us pondered this multiple times! This book is fabulous and should have wide appeal. Not to be missed.
November 26, 2010
Moxie Roosevelt is headed to boarding school. Unfortunately she has no self-confidence and decides this is the time she becomes all that she can be. Unfortunately she can’t seem to settle on one particular personality. Moxie has set out to reinvent herself and finds herself keeping a journal to keep track of all of her personalities. She is one person with this friend and someone else with another. In the end she has to do some real introspection to figure out the real Moxie was inside all along. This was another of those books that just didn’t flip my switch at first. It was so funny watching her try to keep it all together that I ended up really enjoying it.
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April 5, 2011Moxie Roosevelt Kipper has endured thirteen years of being an ordinary girl with an unordinary name. Now that she's entered boarding school, the time is ripe to reinvent herself. She'll become unusual, outlandish, unexpected, sassy—someone worthy of a name like “Moxie.” From Mysterious Earth Goddess to Hale and Hearty Sports Enthusiast; from Detached, Unique, Coolly Knowing Individual to Assertive Revolutionary Activist, Moxie tries them all, while keeping her true talent for piano-playing a secret. But at boarding school, Moxie isn't the only one who isn't what she claims to be. (Ages 10-14)
February 10, 2014
A cute girl book, Moxie is starting boarding school because her small town has no school after 7th grade. Moxie sees this as an opportunity to reinvent herself with eye toward becoming more popular. The trouble is Moxie doesn't know which of several personalities she might like to assume and so begins to assume each of them depending on how she feels the girl she is with will receive it. She keeps a journal of what personality she shows to which girls, and lies as necessary to fill in the appropriate backgrounds. As you can see this plan starts to fall apart fairly quickly with amusing results.
September 8, 2010
This was cute and enjoyable - a familiar story with likable characters and a decent amount of humor. As a new parent, I love the ccmment about sending Moxie's parents to remedial child naming classes, and the lies that Moxie comes up with to support her new personalities are ridiculously funny.
The concept may be old, but I liked it anyway. I remember making up stories because I thought they were more interesting than my real life (although I think I was in elementary school at the time), and I could completely empathize with Moxie.
Lying. Will probably be more appealing to girls.
The concept may be old, but I liked it anyway. I remember making up stories because I thought they were more interesting than my real life (although I think I was in elementary school at the time), and I could completely empathize with Moxie.
Lying. Will probably be more appealing to girls.
May 31, 2011
This book was pretty good to read in your spare time, maybe not for a book report but it's all up to you. This story was about a girl struggling to fit in and she tries to have things in common with everyone so that she wouldn't be alone anymore. I get how she was feeling and I think everyone has had that feeling of needing to belong at one point or another and she just deals with it differently, it's like she puts on a different skin with each person to hide who she really is but eventually she just can't fight it and she's too eager to please when her web of lies crumbles down.
November 11, 2010
I loved this book! It was an easy read because I loved it so much. Great story, great characters, and just a great and pretty real plot. This book seems great for kids and teens who act like different people to different people. They have different personalities to different people. I can relate to that with different friends,but I obviously I didn't do it as big as Moxie did. But I think everyone does it at sometime in their life.
August 7, 2011
What a great story about being who you really are. At first I was getting tired of Moxie lying about her various personalities, but about 2/3 of the way through, I could see her realizing the mistake. I particularly enjoyed how Moxie used her musical talent to explain why and how she wanted to reinvent herself. Very well done. This book would be great for girls, especially girls who may think that they don't have enough friends, but maybe have one or two really good friends.
August 12, 2012
A very likeable and humorous voice. This book captures the adolescent search for self and self-acceptance very well. The finale, which takes place during a talent show, would never have occured in real life. School talent shows are way too structured to allow one student to take over the stage for so long. However, by the time this occured, I was so in love with Moxie that I was absolutely willing to suspend my disbelief.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 16, 2010
Moxie Roosevelt doesn't want to be herself anymore. She thinks that she is boring and plans on reinventing herself for eight grade when she starts boarding school. She sets up an experiment and plans on trying out four different personalities on different friends which ends up exploding in her face...Great story about how you should be yourself because if you know it or not you're pretty cool.
March 8, 2011
This book was okay. It was a little slow but I was interested with it. The main character, is obviously Moxie, and the whole book is about her at a new school, a boarding school to be exact. I liked this book because it seemed as if it could have taken place in 2011, it was and sounded very current. But the lesson was very plain and clear
May 27, 2011
This book was okay...I like the cover and I was immediately interested in the overall concept of a girl who "tries on several personalities for size" while trying to decide who she wants to be at a new school. But the book didn't hold my attention very well...part of that could have been that I was reading it only at school when I had time :)
April 14, 2012
This is a story about how a girl tries to find her real personality by experimenting with many different ones and then lands herself deep in trouble. For my full review, visit:
http://icysweetness.webs.com/apps/blo...
I review preteen, teen, young adult, and adult books all on the same website.
http://icysweetness.webs.com/apps/blo...
I review preteen, teen, young adult, and adult books all on the same website.
September 13, 2010
Good girl book, but kind of predictable. It reminds me of that disney channel movie Camp Rock, if you or your girly readers are into that sort of thing. Loved that the main character was a piano prodigy and that she has a crazy name (not that I can relate or anything...)
October 18, 2010
Good middle grade novel about a kid trying on all kinds of new personalities when she starts at a new school. Easy, funny and on point. Give this to 6/7/8th graders who want realistic fiction girl books. -Maeve
February 9, 2011
Moxie has a chance to reinvent herself, and she goes a little overboard. I really like this for a read aloud or for 5-6 grade girls who think they are "ordinary" and the perils and blessings of friendship
May 29, 2011
I can totally get trying to reinvent yourself, but Moxie takes it a bit far. I very much appreciated the resolution. I felt it was very realistic. You couldn't help but root for Moxie. Good story.
October 14, 2011
I'm giving this book 2 stars because
One: the book didn't grasp onto me
Two: it bored me alot but I still laughed at one or two parts
Three: the book didn't make sense you already knew she was going to get busted any ways
One: the book didn't grasp onto me
Two: it bored me alot but I still laughed at one or two parts
Three: the book didn't make sense you already knew she was going to get busted any ways
August 26, 2012
The first chapter is boring but then,the book gets so interesting that it's so hard for me to put this book down.Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews