Besties: Prank War: A Graphic Novel About Middle School Friendship for Children (Ages 8-12) (The World of Click) Paperback – March 4, 2025

Both of my daughters read the book so fast! They love this series and couldn’t wait to read this new one!

Besties: Prank War is a charming middle grade graphic novel by Kayla Miller and Jeffrey Canino and illustrations by Sarah Turner.Though this is technically the third book in The World of Click series, you can absolutely read this as a standalone; I did!I had a fun time reading this book. The art style was fun and interesting, and there is a pretty diverse range of race, gender presentation, and body type among all of the characters. I loved the variety of color the illustrator used in this novel.It took my brain a minute to parse the font, though. The lower-case As were throwing me off for a little bit, they looked more like lower-case Ds to me.All of the characters seemed pretty relatable, and I laughed several times. There was one silly joke that really got me when it came up the third time (gotta love the rule of three). It feels very approachable for its intended audience.That being said, I think the prank war went on a little long because it started to feel a bit repetitive to me. I also feel like the adults around them (especially the parents) really did not step up to help solve the issue when they absolutely could have.

Back for a third round of the World of Click, with each book focusing on a pair of characters from the Click series. Trent and Sawyer are avid skateboarders who are crushing on pro skateboarder Trish Sampson. Anything Trish says and does is golden in their eyes. When she shows an amazing prank she pulled off on her social media page, she invites her viewers to a prank contest where the grand prize winner will attend the Half Pipe Palooza. Trent and Sawyer have mega plans to pull off the best and biggest prank to win the contest.At first the pranks smart off small and rather harmless. That is until they pull a prank on Natasha (“Nat”), who is known to be rather fierce with her temper. Nat did not appreciate being the focus of Trent and Sawyer’s prank and turns the tables on them, one-upping them on every one of their pranks. It becomes a prank war, getting to a point where their peers no longer find them amusing or funny, but rather an annoyance. When does this all end? And what will be the final prank to end all pranks?I enjoyed the story although I am not one who usually likes stories that involve jokes on people or pranks. Admittedly I felt the pranking went on way too long and the parents, teachers and school staff did not handle the shenanigans very well. I did enjoy this illustrator much more than the previous graphic novels. The drawings were delightful and the color was fabulous. I still have difficulty with the font used in this series and the Click series. I always read the ‘a’ as ‘d’ and it can be rather annoying. I wish they would change the fonts to something friendlier. I love the Click series more than this World of Click series but I do appreciate how the World series rotates the focus on different characters.Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy.