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ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: The Fall Festival Fiasco
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.aaronstarmer.com/
CITY: Stowe
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 395
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1976, in CA; married Catharine Wells; children: two daughters.
EDUCATION:Drew University, B.A. (English), 1998; New York University, M.A. (cinema studies), 2000.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and editor. Longitude Books (online publisher), website editor, 1999-2007; Micato Safaris, operations director, 2007-09, school sponsorship program coordinator of America Share (nonprofit), 2009; freelance author beginning 2009.
AVOCATIONS:Running.
WRITINGS
Contributor to Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney’s Book of Lists, 2006, and The Unofficial Guide to New York City, Wiley, 2010.
The “Riverman” novels were adapted for audiobook, read by Graham Halsted and others, Recorded Books, 2014-16; Spontaneous was adapted into a film.
SIDELIGHTS
Aaron Starmer turned to writing after earning an advanced degree in cinema studies and working as web editor for an online publisher specializing in travel books for the international set. Addressing an adolescent audience allowed Starmer to indulge both his wit and his imagination, and critics and readers alike have responded with enthusiasm. His middle-grade novel Dweeb: Burgers, Beasts, and Brainwashed Bullies was praised for its quirky humor, and his futuristic young-adult novel The Only Ones posits a near-future wherein the few people remaining on Earth have unique gifts that contribute to a new but still uniquely human society. An ambitious undertaking, Starmer’s “Riverman Trilogy” delves into fantasy while contemplating the organic interface between reality and imagined worlds. Another series, titled “Locker 37,” offers middle-grade readers madcap, hilarious storylines. (open new) Mathematics provides the foundation for yet another series, this time for younger readers, called “Math Mysteries.”(close new—more below)
Enlivened by Andy Rash’s illustrations and set in New Jersey, Dweeb introduces five bright but socially inept eighth graders: Bijay, Denton, Eddie, Elijah, and Wendell. When the time for standardized testing comes around, the five classmates are trapped in the school basement by their school’s vice principal. In order to understand why, they must join forces and escape from their subterranean prison. Plans to develop super-teen DNA and efforts to transform the school lunchroom into a fast-food heaven also figure in Starmer’s quirky tale, which School Library Journal critic Robin Henry recommended as a “fun … break from the often-heavy realistic fiction” written for the middle-grade age group. In Booklist, Andrew Medlar noted the wry humor in Starmer’s story, predicting that “there are undoubtedly those who will find companionship and commiseration” in the “dweebishness” of the story’s unusual heroes.
In Spontaneous, Starmer captures the world view of many twenty-first-century teens in his novel about high-school senior Mara Carlyle. Worries about college and annoying parents and her upcoming calculus exam are suddenly sidelined when Katelyn, one of Mara’s classmates literally explodes during class. Katelyn’s fate is shocking, but then another teen self-destructs, and then another. When this series of unpleasant deaths attracts the attention of the F.B.I., the threat is localized to Mara’s New Jersey town and quarantine is enforced. Raised to expect the end of the world, Mara takes things in stride, and she narrates her experiences living with the ever-present fear of spontaneous combustion in what Michael Cart characterized in Booklist as an “achingly honest, darkly humorous, and occasionally acerbic voice.” An absurdist novel with a “bloody, madcap premise,” according to a Publishers Weekly critic, Spontaneous inspires readers to contemplate something far more serious and relevant, however: “how much … is out of our control, and how important it is to seize whatever time we’re given.”
Starmer begins his “Riverman” trilogy in The Riverman, as twelve-year-old Alisdair Cleary is chosen to write his neighbor Fiona’s biography. An imaginative child, Fiona claims that she can travel to a parallel fantasy world called Aquavania, where she has met someone scary called the Riverman. Alistair thinks that Fiona’s story is actually a metaphor that allows her to deal with something bad she has experienced in real life, but then she disappears. As he sets out to discover the truth, a tragedy involving his friend Charlie Dyer is set in motion. Writing in Booklist, Sarah Bean Thompson predicted that Starmer’s “magical tale is sure to please readers of urban fantasy,” and School Library Journal critic Sara Lissa Paulson suggested of The Riverman that “those ready to explore darker realities will devour this book.”
When Alisdair returns in The Whisper, his effort to locate Fiona have led him to Aquavania, and it is here where all manner of imaginary worlds are interconnected. As he travels from world to world in search of his friend, he is befriended by several talking birds and gains a helpful guide named Polly. Within these dreamlike kingdoms, which are oddly unstable, he learns that within the collected fantasies are terrors as well. While suspecting that Charlie’s involvement in his quest may have been self-serving, Alisdair also realizes that Fiona’s fear of the Riverman was well-founded. This soul-stealing creature—which is also called the Whisper—consumes the souls of those who create vivid fantasy worlds, and they have no interest in returning to their reality. Calling Alisdair “a timid hero who learns to trust his intuition,” a Kirkus Reviews writer added that the second “Riverman” novel answers many questions raised in the first. As readers learn the truth about Fiona and Alisdair, they are drawn into a “cautionary tale,” noted Paulson in School Library Journal; in The Whisper, Starmer “explores the dark nature of lies … and the surprising pain of truth” as well as contemplating the complex emotions underlying all fantasies, the critic noted.
Although Alisdair has returned home by the time readers rejoin him in The Storyteller, his experiences in Aquavania have melded with tragedy and rendered him mute. With Charlie still missing and Charlie’s brother Kyle shot, Alisdair’s fourteen-year-old sister, Kerrigan, is determined to learn the truth. She uses a diary to record her discoveries and she eventually gains her brother’s help. Kerri learns to harness the power of Aquavania by telling stories, and her “pithy, insightful, irreverent, and vulnerable diary” becomes an effective vehicle for Starmer’s “intense, thoughtful, and satisfying” series conclusion, according to a Kirkus Reviews writer. Praising the “Riverman” trilogy as an “original and uniquely satisfying” choice for fans of Orson Scott Card and Madeleine L’Engle, Tara Kron added in School Library Journal that this thought-provoking saga “challenges traditionally reiterated narrative devices by never dealing in absolutes and not tying things off into neat bows.”
Starmer opens his “Locker 37” middle-grade series with The Magic Eraser. On the first day of school, fourth-grader Carson Cooper finds a cryptic note from a student in a previous year who explains that a magical locker at the school will provide an answer for any problem. Since Carson has an unfortunate stain on his pants, he seeks out the locker, finding the magic eraser of the book’s title. The eraser works, but perhaps too well. As the plot advances, numerous solutions turn out to cause even bigger problems. Reviewing the book in School Library Journal, Monisha Blair lauded its “short chapters and large print” as being well suited for reluctant readers. A Kirkus Reviews critic offered more fulsome praise, hailing the storyapos;s “wonderful, imaginative, magical hilarity” and calling The Magic Eraser a “laugh-out-loud tour de force.”
The fourth book in the “Locker 37” series, The Interdimensional Fish Sticks, illustrated by Courtney La Forest, finds fourth-grader Bryce Dodd in his Halloween costume at Hopewell Elementary hoping to impress the girl he likes, Keisha, but the teacher makes him take it off. He goes to the magical Locker 37 and eats a fish stick that transports him to series of successively weird parallel universes.
(open new) In 2023, Starmer launched his“Math Mysteries” series with the volume, Math Mysteries: The Triplet Threat. The series is Starmer’s first written for younger readers and stars students in Ms. Everly’s fourth grade class. In this volume, Gabe Kim, Cam McGill, and Abby “The Abacus” Feldstein team up to get to the bottom of a series of confounding things that occur at Arithmos Elementary. Calling themselves the Prime Detectives, Gabe, Cam, and Abby learn about how cooking and chemistry are connected, and they track down a stolen iPad. The title of the book refers to another mystery they solve involving the Penderton triplets. A Publishers Weekly reviewer described the book as “a fast-reading story that’s light on mystery but rich in equations.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews suggested that it offered “high density edutainment with cookies.” “Nicely integrated demonstrations of the solutions through both character dialogue and explicit arithmetic equations set this apart,” asserted Amy Ravelo in Booklist.
The Fall Festival Fiasco is the second volume in Starmer’s “Math Mysteries” series. It finds Cam, Gabe, and Abby investigating a scandal at a big annual event at their school. Someone is sabotaging the Fall Festival, and the Prime Detectives are determined to uncover the culprit. Along the way, they use their math skills to inform their investigation. Highlighting the significance of the math element in the book, a Kirkus Reviews writer suggested: “There’s a bona fide mystery, but most of the solving goes by the numbers.”(close new)
Starmer’s Meme is described as a psychological revenge thriller for the internet age. Set in Vermont, teenager Cole is paranoid, getting out of control, collecting guns, and threatening his ex-girlfriend, Meeka, and her friends, who devise a plan to protect themselves. They kill Cole and bury him along with four old phones that each contains a recording of their confession, so none of them can betray the group with what they’ve done. However, a meme of one of the confessions appears on social media, exposing the group. Did one of them betray the others, or is Cole not as dead as they thought? A writer in Publishers Weekly pointed out the commentary on white privilege, toxic masculinity, and loneliness, as well as some loose ends in the plot, nevertheless, “a tense, revolving first-person narrative propels the reader through an absorbing scheme-gone-wrong mystery.” In Kirkus Reviews, a critic described the struggle of self-serving, unsympathetic characters in “this taut psychological thriller about the dangers of the internet and the alt-right movement.”
Personal growth and the value of friendship mark Starmer’s A Million Views, in which twelve-year-old loner Brewster Gaines wants nothing more than to get a million views on his homemade videos that he shoots himself and posts on YouTube. He gets no help from his indifferent teacher and absent parents, and he doesn’t believe he needs friends to succeed. But then he uncharacteristically asks classmate Carly Lee to help him make his latest 10-second video. But production gets out of hand when she brings in her privileged friend Rosa as producer who provides the video a huge budget. Then come a cast and crew, a production manager, a diva actor, cosplayers, special effects, and even the making of a fancy trailer. Control freak Brewster eventually realizes there’s nothing wrong in asking for help if he hopes to achieve a million views.
In an interview with Cherokee Crum online at YA and Kids! Books Central, Starmer explained his inspiration for the book: “When I was kid, I was obsessed with making movies. I had the passion and I had a camcorder. Only problem was, I didn’t have enough friends who shared that passion. … By writing A Million Views, I wanted to indulge in the fantasy of seeing what would happen if those friends not only shared that passion, but took it to a whole other level. So that’s what happens to the main character, Brewster. And in the process, he finds a family among these friends, which is something he desperately needs.”
“Gentle humor buoys personal growth in this character-driven novel of filmmaking and found family,” according to a Publishers Weekly writer, who added that the wryly narrated story is filled with believable characters and in-depth look at the filmmaking process. A Kirkus Reviews contributor remarked that “The humor is sharp, the story is well paced,” the band of misfits are memorable, and the story is “A well-rounded, heartfelt tale of creativity and family.” Despite the story’s slow set-up and one-dimensional characters defined only by their roles in the production, readers “may enjoy the snappy dialogue and the insider’s look at how movies are made,” said Lindsay Loup in School Library Journal.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, October 15, 2009, Andrew Medlar, review of Dweeb: Burgers, Beasts, and Brainwashed Bullies, p. 64; February 1, 2014, Sarah Bean Thompson, review of The Riverman, p. 65; July 1, 2016, Michael Cart, review of Spontaneous, p. 55; August 1, 2023, Amy Ravelo, review of Math Mysteries: The Triplet Threat, p. 53.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, January, 2010, Karen Coats, review of Dweeb, p. 219.
Horn Book Guide, fall, 2014, Susan Graham, review of The Riverman, p. 92; fall, 2015, Betty Carterm, review of The Whisper, p. 103.
Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2009, review of Dweeb; February 1, 2014, review of The Riverman; December 15, 2014, review of The Whisper; December 15, 2015, review of The Storyteller; April 15, 2020, review of The Magic Eraser; July 15, 2020, review of Meme; August 15, 2022, review of A Million Views; July 1, 2023, review of The Triplet Threat;July 1, 2024, review of The Fall Festival Fiasco.
Publishers Weekly, June 6, 2016, review of Spontaneous, p. 86; August 3, 2020, review of Meme, p. 61; August 8, 2022, review of A Million Views, p. 64; June 26, 2023, review of The Triplet Threat, p. 105.
School Library Journal, November, 2009, Robin Henry, review of Dweeb, p. 122; March 1, 2014, Sara Lissa Paulson, review of The Riverman, p. 149; February, 2015, Sara Lissa Paulson, reviews of The Whisper, p. 94; February, 2016, Tara Kron, review of The Storyteller, p. 86; August, 2016, Mahnaz Dar, review of Spontaneous, p. 116; June, 2020, Monisha Blair, review of The Magic Eraser, p. 65; November 2022, Lindsay Loup, review of A Million Views, p. 60.
Voice of Youth Advocates, December, 2014, Barbara Johnson, review of The Whisper, p. 84; February, 2016, Shana Morales, review of The Storyteller, p. 77; August, 2016, Elisabeth W. Rauch, review of Spontaneous, p. 80.
ONLINE
Aaron Starmer website, https://www.aaronstarmer.com (January 29, 2025).
BookPage, http://www.bookpage.com/ (April 1, 2014), Sharon Verbeten, review of The Riverman.
YA and Kids! Books Central, https://www.yabookscentral.com/ (October 4, 2022), Cherokee Crum, “Interview with Aaron Starmer.”*
Aaron Starmer
Aaron Starmers work fluctuates between travel writing and childrens writing and theres never a dull moment with either.
Just a few days before Starmer talked to The Reporter to promote his new book, The Only Ones, he spent time in the Galapagos Islands, reviewing the exotic vacation destination. But when hes not working on freelance travel writing gigs, hes in his Hoboken home working on new fiction projects. Starmer, who has a masters degree from New York University in cinema studies, lives with his wife.
Read more: Hudson Reporter - The last kids left on earth Local resident reflects on career new book
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy
New and upcoming books
September 2024
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The Fall Festival Fiasco
(Math Mysteries, book 2)April 2025
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Night Swimming
Series
Riverman Trilogy
1. The Riverman (2014)
2. The Whisper (2015)
3. The Storyteller (2016)
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Locker 37
1. The Magic Eraser (2020)
2. The Rewindable Clock (2020)
3. The Ridiculous and Wonderful Rainbow Hat (2020)
4. The Interdimensional Fish Sticks (2021)
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Math Mysteries
1. The Triplet Threat (2023)
2. The Fall Festival Fiasco (2024)
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Novels
Dweeb (2009)
The Only Ones (2011)
Spontaneous (2016)
Meme (2020)
A Million Views (2022)
Night Swimming (2025)
Aaron Starmer was born in northern California and raised in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York. Before pursuing writing full-time, he worked in New York City for over ten years as an editor for a travel bookseller and as an operations director for an African safari company. His middle grade and young adult novels have been translated into multiple foreign languages and have appeared on best of the year lists from Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, New York Public Library, YALSA, Bank Street College of Education, Chicago Public Library and School Library Journal. He lives in Vermont with his wife and two daughters.
The Basics...
Aaron Starmer was born in northern California and raised in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York. Before pursuing writing full-time, he worked in New York City for over ten years as an editor for a travel bookseller and as an operations director for an African safari company. His middle grade and young adult novels have been translated into multiple foreign languages and have appeared on best of the year lists from Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, New York Public Library, YALSA, Bank Street College of Education, Chicago Public Library and School Library Journal. He lives in Vermont with his wife and two daughters.
QUOTED: "There's a bona fide mystery, but most of the solving goes by the numbers."
Starmer, Aaron THE FALL FESTIVAL FIASCO Odd Dot (Children's None) $8.99 9, 10 ISBN: 9781250841797
A trio of fourth graders known as the Prime Detectives count up the clues to find out who's sabotaging Arithmos Elementary's fall festival.
In this series outing, mathematical mavens Abby Feldstein, Cam McGill, and Gabe Kim--who respectively present as white, Black, and Asian in Kissi's cartoon line drawings--show each step of their work in boxed-out segments as they track a classmate's spending, calculate the odds of dunking their teacher at a dunk-tank challenge, estimate the weights of outsize pumpkins, and engage in other real-life arithmetical operations. All the while, they also assemble evidence that various events at the annual festival have been deliberately sabotaged and reason their way to a culprit. The relentlessly instructional narrative also offers such non-mathematical tidbits as a mnemonic for how to spell February ("The rumor is that there are two R s in it!"), the value of a "memory palace" (a technique for recalling important things), and that there really is an African country called Eswatini (known as Swaziland until 2018), even if many recent maps don't show it. In any case, the saboteur's motives and the outcomes turn out to be relatively benign, and the episode winds its way to a peaceful close, with just a tantalizing hint that things may get "weird" next time around. Final art not seen.
There's a bona fide mystery, but most of the solving goes by the numbers. (Fiction. 7-10)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Starmer, Aaron: THE FALL FESTIVAL FIASCO." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A799332954/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=49537877. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.
QUOTED: "Nicely integrated demonstrations of the solutions through both character dialogue and explicit arithmetic equations set this apart."
The Triplet Threat. By Aaron Starmer. Illus. by Marta Kissi. Aug. 2023.192P. Macmillan/Odd Dot, paper, $8.99 (9781250839282). Gr. 3-5.
Math class, Ron Roy's A to Z Mysteries series, and Ms. Frizzle merge in this short math mystery focused on Arthimos Elementary's fourth-grade class. The story centers primarily upon the point of view of the Prime Detectives, a trio of longtime friends and students in Ms. Everly's fourth-grade class, as its members begin their first day of a new school year. The early chapters of this story beautifully set the scene for the unfolding mysteries while also allowing the audience to gather information and background on the characters and classroom dynamics. Each chapter cleverly elevates the stakes with different theories and mathematical processes that escalate in difficulty as well as build tension and mystery. Ideal for any elementary classroom, the book provides easy-to-understand ways of thinking through math problems in concrete scenarios, such as mismanaged time, a zip line mishap, a missing iPad, and poisoned cookies. Nicely integrated demonstrations of the solutions through both character dialogue and explicit arithmetic equations set this apart, and the occasional illustrations help bring to life the characters.--Amy Ravelo
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Ravelo, Amy. "The Triplet Threat." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 22, 1 Aug. 2023, p. 53. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A761981750/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7fa3674a. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.
QUOTED: "high density edutainment with cookies."
Starmer, Aaron THE TRIPLET THREAT Odd Dot (Children's None) $8.99 8, 29 ISBN: 9781250839282
Fourth grade sleuths do it by the numbers in this STEM-centric series kickoff.
Showing every step in inset boxes of calculations and solutions inserted throughout the narrative, Starmer pitches a nonstop series of classroom mysteries at math whiz Abby "The Abacus" Feldstein, stats superstar Gabe Kim, and talented chemist/kitchen dynamo Cam McGill--collectively known as the Prime Detectives since, obviously, they're indivisible like prime numbers. Shepherded by firm, kind teacher Mrs. Everly (think Ms. Frizzle but with an even larger wardrobe), the team solves conundrums ranging from why the Penderton triplets are tardy on the first day of class at Arithmos Elementary and why the initial batch of homemade cookies they bake for everyone tastes terrible (a recipe is included midway through) to the fate of a stolen iPad. Along with arithmetical operations and systematic evidence gathering, getting to answers involves rounding, estimation, and unit conversion not to mention clear explanations of "buffalo theory," the right way to scale recipes up, techniques for creating a "Memory Palace," and several other intellectual tools as useful outside math class as in. In Kissi's blue-tinted drawings, Abby and Mrs. Everly are light-skinned, Gabe is cued Asian, and Cam presents Black; their classmates are a racially diverse group.
High density edutainment with cookies. (Fiction. 7-10)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Starmer, Aaron: THE TRIPLET THREAT." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A754972177/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=425b4692. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.
QUOTED: "a fast-reading story that's light on mystery but rich in equations."
The Triplet Threat (Math Mysteries #1)
Aaron Starmer, illus. by Marta Kissi. Odd Dot, $18.99 (192p) ISBN 9784-250-88957-7; $8.99 paper ISBN 978-1-250-83928-2
Numbers are the key to rooting out the truth in this low-stakes first installment of an arithmetic whodunit series by Starmer (A Million Views). Abby Feldstein, Cam McGill, and Gabe Kim call themselves the Prime Detectives, so named for their reputation as sleuths who use math to solve mysteries and for their friendship, which is as indivisible as prime numbers. The first day of fourth grade immediately tests the trio's mettle: the Penderton triplets, three brothers new to Arithmos Elementary, bustle into the classroom expecting to be early but are instead inexplicably 10 minutes tardy. In this first of several episodic numerical capers, the Prime Detectives crack the case, detailing via concise prose how they use mathematical logic to puzzle out those missing minutes. The team breaks subsequent mysteries down into digestible math problems, using conversions to explain a batch of inedible cookies and statistics to demonstrate how a gym class obstacle course went sideways. Cheerful, limited blue-palette illustrations by Kissi (the Wind Riders series) accompany each adventure, making for a fast-reading story that's light on mystery but rich in equations. Characters are depicted as having varying skin tones. Ages 8-11. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel, Goderich &Bourret. (Aug.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"The Triplet Threat (Math Mysteries #1)." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 26, 26 June 2023, p. 105. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A757466745/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d6e417f3. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.