Book excerpt: Fans of Wendy Mass and Sharon Draper will fall in love with this smart and quirky follow up to Night of the Zombie Chickens as Kate must rely on some movie magic to make her next film. Seventh-grader Kate Walden is eager to start on her next film after the huge success of her first movie. This time, she's thinking of creating a sci-fi romance called Bride of Slug Man. When a new kid, Tristan Kingsley, comes to town from New York City, Kate thinks she might have found a film buddy -- someone to share her interest with. And it doesn't hurt that he's pretty cute. But it turns out that Tristan is making his own movie, and now the classmates Kate thought were eager to join her cast and crew are divided. With rumors spreading in school and between sets, Kate finds herself juggling more than just call times and rewrites. And judging from the whispers Kate hears about Tristan, she suspects that he isn't interested in having a fellow film-buff friend-he just wants to prove himself as the best filmmaker in school by winning the Big Picture Film Festival. Kate vows to enter too, and tries to focus on just making the best movie she can. But between the cutthroat popularity contest, a bully situation that goes from bad to worse, and several on-set mishaps, Kate is going to need all the movie magic she can get to make sure Bride of Slug Man hits the big screen.