If your dad is the King, does that make you a prince? If you're Josh Greenwood, it just makes you embarrassed.

Josh is the narrator of All Shook Up, a great new book for young readers by Silver Lake author Shelley Pearsall. Josh is 13, and his parents are divorced. When word comes from Florida that his grandma has broken her hip, he figures he'll be going there with his mom.

Instead, he's on a plane to Chicago to stay with his dad, the shoe salesman. Make that ex-shoe salesman, as Dad has recently lost his job and has begun making a living as Elvis — with sideburns, a dyed-black pompadour and polyester jumpsuit.

For Josh, trying to fit in at a new school is tough enough without having to hide his shameful secret. When Dad announces that he'll be performing at a school concert, well, desperate times call for desperate measures, and Josh dreams up a scheme to keep Dad away. Unfortunately, it's a really dirty trick, and Josh begins to realize Dad's feelings are important, too.

All Shook Up (272 pages, hardcover) is a hunk-a good reading for 8- to 14-year-olds — and their parents. It costs $15.99 from Random House.
Girl's life unravels
after spelling bee

Although the author's preface states that some names and other details have been changed, Whatever Happened to MacNolia Cox is ''based on true events.'' Georgia Lee Gay should know, as she is Cox's niece.

MacNolia Cox was, at age 13, the Beacon Journal's representative to the 1936 National Spelling Bee. She had a fine mind and bright prospects. But the trip to Washington for the bee changed things. She was African-American, and couldn't stay at the hotel with the white contestants or sit with them at the banquet.

When she came home to Akron, having been eliminated from the contest by missing a word that hadn't been on the official list, ''Mac'' began losing faith in her future. Her grades began to slip; her mother forced her to have an abortion. She never finished high school, and went into a life of domestic service, drinking more than was good for her. She died in 1976.

Despite her unfulfilled promise, MacNolia Cox left a legacy: Gay lists family members who have pursued higher education, ''realizing their dreams.''

Whatever Happened to MacNolia Cox (125 pages, softcover) costs $14.95 from http://www.publishamerica.com.
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Footnotes

• The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, the stunning 1965 novel by the late Cleveland journalist Don Robertson, has been re-released in softcover by HarperCollins. The story is about 9-year-old Morris Bird III, who sets out across town one October day, only to witness one of the worst disasters in Cleveland history when gas storage tanks exploded, killing 130. Morris' reaction to the horrifying event, and Robertson's remarkable writing, make this book worth reading again.

• Meet former Beacon Journal reporter Thrity Umrigar at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst, where she'll sign If Today Be Sweet, her moving novel of a Bombay widow trying to decide whether she should move in with her son's family in a Cleveland suburb.

• On Friday at 7 p.m., Bill Rapp will sign A Pale Rain, second book in his Suburban P.I. series, at the Learned Owl Book Shop, 204 N. Main St., Hudson. The sequel to Angel in Black continues the story of private investigator Bill Haberman as he fights the mob's attempt to control Chicago's water supply.
— Barbara McIntyre
Special to the Beacon Journal