Rafe Khatchadorian may have survived his first year of middle school, but seventh grade looms on the horizon.  And seventh grade promises more changes for Rafe and his imaginary best friend, Leo the Silent.  First, Rafe’s family moves in with Grandma Dotty in the big city.  That means a new big city middle school to survive–Cathedral School of the Arts–and a new mission–Rafe Get a Life.

Just like last year, trouble follows in Rafe’s wake, no matter how hard he tries to avoid it.  Trouble first shows up in new bullies and then a new friend–Matty the Freak.  Along the way, Rafe tries all kinds of new experiences, from riding the subway to dropping water balloons, uh gloves.

Like the first installment, Middle School Get Me Out of Here (Little, Brown, and Company 2012) by James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts is packed with snarky humor (and innocence from Rafe–Who, me?).  Rafe’s illustrations of his life reveal that his imagination is much more interesting than real life.  Rafe also discovers a surprising secret about his dad.  That’s the only part of the book that bothered me.  I’m not sure why his mom would keep the secret the truth about Rafe’s dad.

I do think that fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Origami Yoda will enjoy this combination of text, pictures, and humor.  I suspect that some of my incoming seventh graders might share Rafe’s fear and trepidation of starting middle school.  A little humor can go a long way to dispel some of it.

If you can’t get enough of Rafe’s adventures and attitude, and if you haven’t yet gotten his little sister’s story in Middle Schooll My Brother Is a Big, Fat Liar, you can check out Rafe’s Rants, a web series on Patterson’s website.