Twelve-year-old Movits “Mo” Lind is the antithesis of cool. He plays chess, trains his guinea pig, cooks for his younger sister, and mortifies his popular older sister with his geeky interests. His life changes, though, when he agrees to travel with his best friend, Ruben, from their quiet suburb to downtown Stockholm to see Ruben’s brother in a skateboarding competition. There, Mo sees a girl his age, a talented skater, and instantly falls in love with her. Discovering that she lives nearby, he convinces his parents to buy him a skateboard and starts learning to skate so he can impress her. It does not go well, but despite his limited talent, Mo starts playing the part – dressing like a skater and going with Ruben and Ruben’s brother to a multilevel parking garage to show off their tricks. An accident gone very right leads to a viral video, and now Mo is famous. A television station wants him to replicate the trick, and the town builds a giant ramp for him to do it. Mo is faced with the choice of risking his life (and probably failing), or telling everyone the truth, which will ruin his social reputation forever, destroy any chance of getting the girl to like him. and may even lead to legal consequences for a family basking in his celebrity. Mo may be physically and socially awkward, but he’s creative in unusual ways that may ultimately save him. 

Swedish author Rundberg, best known for his historical mystery series Moonwind Mysteries, offers a fast-paced and charming contemporary story of a boy learning the importance of being true to himself. He captures the awkwardness of the preteen years and the family dynamics of a middle child who feels invisible, squeezed between a domineering older sibling and a needy younger one. His efforts to assert his own needs and get help when he’s in way over his head fall through in ways that are both humorous and believable; in the end, he is forced to count on his own ingenuity, the loyalty of his best friend, and the sage advice of an eccentric older neighbor who has become a kind of surrogate parents in the absence of his own harried parents. This novel will resonate with middle grade readers seeking to figure out who they are and find their place within their own families and the wider world. A cross-linguistic reference to skateboarding icon Tony Hawk (Tony Hök) will delight readers who enjoy wordplay and associated trivia. Translator Eva Apelqvist, who translated ALA Printz Honor title Fire From the Sky, captures Mo’s first-person voice and the lingo of middle schoolers today.

Biggest Fake in the Universe

Written by Johan Rundberg

Translated from Swedish by Eva Apelqvist

Amazon Crossing Kids, 2025

187 pp.

ISBN 978-1-66253203-3 (cl); 978-166253204-7 (pb)

Reviews and Awards:

A Children’s Book Council Hot Off the Press, August 2025

You can buy a copy of Biggest Fake in the Universe here or find it in a library here.

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Lyn Miller-Lachmann is the author of the YA historical novel Torch (Carolrhoda Lab, 2022), winner of the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature and a 2022 Booklist Editors’ Choice, and the YA verse novel Eyes Open (Carolrhoda Lab 2024), chosen by Booklist as a Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth, 2024. She wrote the picture book Ways to Play (Levine Querido, 2023), illustrated by Gabriel Alborozo, and co-authored with Zetta Elliott the middle grade verse novel Moonwalking (FSG, 2022). Her nonfiction includes a biography of Temple Grandin in the She Persisted chapter book series from Philomel and Film Makers: 15 Groundbreaking Women Directors (co-authored with Tanisia “Tee” Moore) from Chicago Review Press. She translates books for youth from Portuguese to English, including the 2023 YA graphic novel Pardalita by Joana Estrela, published by Levine Querido, which was named a Batchelder Honor Book in 2024 and the graphic novel Our Beautiful Darkness (Enchanted Lion), by the Angolan author Ondjaki, illustrated by António Jorge Gonçalves.