In Fitness Fiasco, written by Halli Gomez under the pseudonym Verity Weaver, you’ll meet 4 diverse characters just before their middle school’s Fall Family Fitness Festival. Whether the middle-grade reader in your life likes martial arts or jump rope, Latin dance or yoga, they’ll find a character they can connect with.

The P.E. instructor has the eighth-grade class plan and man fitness stations to show off their athletic talents at the fair. After the fitness stations are set up but before everyone arrives for the show, two booths are demolished.

Who would do such a thing?

Readers follow along as each of the 4 main characters look for clues, pursue suspects and try to identify the bad guy. Can you figure out who trashed the stations before the big reveal?

The thing I loved about Fitness Fiasco was its modern, genuine characters. My favorite characters might be Dawson, the martial arts guy planning to stage a karate brick-break to live down the embarrassing flop at his last martial arts event. But I also love Jorge Luis, the gamer-turned-reluctant-Latin-Dancer.

Fitness Fiasco is 1 of 8 books in the What Happened? series published by Jolly Fish Press. The series is high-low (high action, low word count) and perfect for reluctant readers. You can find Fitness Fiasco here:

Goodreads      Indiebound     Barnes & Noble          Amazon

Or check out the full What Happened? Series:

Goodreads       Indiebound     Barnes & Noble          Amazon

Interested in more middle-grade recommendations? Try these books we’ve recently reviewed:

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga.
Honeybees and Frenemies by Kristi Wientge
The Library of Ever by Zeno Alexander