An 11-year-old girl who lives to play basketball creates her own team, the Hoop Girlz, when she’s not selected to be on the town’s A-list squad. River Borowitz-Jacobs adores basketball. So when tough-minded Coach Wally Glover recruits sixth-grade girls to play in the Oregon Coast Tournament, an opportunity that will afford one talented child a shot at free basketball camp, River is at the tryouts. But Coach “play to win” Glover feels that River lacks the necessary “mental fortitude,” so she doesn’t make the cut. After her initial devastation, River bounces back and creates her own team made up of Glover’s rejects, including a girl in a wheelchair and a teammate’s little sister. Aided by her older brother Zack, who turns out to be a shrewd and savvy coach, the Hoop Girlz learn not only how to strategize and work together as a unit, but also how to have “fun, fun, fun” while doing it. The story is so familiar that readers will almost be able to hear the theme music in the background as River’s team overcomes obstacles and prepares for the big meet. Still, the formula works, the ride is enjoyable, and Bledsoe (Cougar Canyon, 2001, etc.) throws in a few minor surprises to keep young bookworms on their toes. Although the material is slightly marred by an undercooked subplot involving Coach Glover’s daughter, Bledsoe is able to transmit her most important point, the pure love of playing, which River likens to going “through a secret door” and entering the “magical kingdom of basketball.” Tailor-made for the high-interest, low-reading level audience, too. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-8234-1691-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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