Game Face: Becoming A PR Detective by Curtis Sparrer

What a terrific idea, writing a middle grade novel about the career of public relations!

Sloan’s favorite computer game, Dungeon Quest, has just hit a weird glitch. Oh well, she figures, time to go to bed anyway… but then she hears her Uncle Curtis speaking urgently from her mom’s home office. She goes to peek in and finds him embroiled in a full-on work crisis.

Sloan figures it’s just grown-up stuff and is about to head back to bed when he says something that makes her realize that he’s actually working on Dungeon Quest. Specifically, he’s trying to figure out how to handle responses to the glitch that started de-aging every character, player or otherwise, in the game. Some shareholders are freaking out and the CEO is Not Happy.

When Sloan mentions that she’d been playing Dungeon Quest right when it all started, Uncle Curtis invites her to sit down and tell him what happened. He soon realizes that she gives him and his team — who are all in a virtual office together — much needed perspective on what’s going on with the game and its players. Together, they begin crafting a response for all the interested parties, and Sloan learns a very cool lesson about what good PR looks like and how PR professionals do their jobs.

This was a very interesting and age-appropriate peek behind the scenes at PR and crisis management. There were definitely parts in my copy that felt like they would have benefited from more stringent editing for both continuity and fact-checking, and some of the words felt a little too big for the target audience, but overall the story was engaging and well-written. Using the framework of a video game was an excellent choice for making the story even more relatable to a young audience. As an adult, I also appreciated the emphases on listening, kindness, and persistence in polite assertiveness (which I prefer to the book’s use of “pushiness” but that’s just me.)

My absolute favorite part of the book, however, was the charming art! The illustrations were super cute, and really lent character to the proceedings. Those, with the inspired choice of font, make it easy to slot this novel into the library of any Middle Grade reader. Definitely worth checking out as an introduction to PR, with lots to interest video game players, too.

Game Face: Becoming A PR Detective by Curtis Sparrer was published April 1 2025 by Christopher Curtis Sparrer and is available from all good booksellers, including