Quietly joyful and triumphant.
This posthumously published final novel from the Newbery-winning author follows a young girl determined to master throwing a knuckleball.
A knuckleball—11-year-old Lucy Chance’s father’s signature pitch—can dip and weave like magic. “You let it fly,” says Lucy’s dad, a pitcher for the minor league Salem Red Sox. Writing in her signature spare, impressionistic prose, MacLachlan conjures up a similar magic, surrounding Lucy with a tightknit cast of loving, supportive characters. Lucy’s father hopes to move up to the major leagues and encourages her passion for the sport. Her perceptive mother, a painter, draws parallels between Lucy’s father’s love of baseball and her own artistic talents (“Think of him trying to paint the game. Like me painting a picture”), while Edgar Vazquez, her father’s best friend and a catcher for the Sox, is a steady, calming presence. Lucy’s best friends and baseball teammates, cousins Robin and Tex, help her secretly practice her knuckleball. Though the novel is light on plot, it nevertheless immerses readers in Lucy’s world, capturing characters’ seemingly small but deeply meaningful victories: a successful game for Lucy, a beautiful sketch drawn by her mother, words of praise from a major league scout who’s observed her father. Everyone wins in this gentle, low-key sports story. Physical descriptions of characters are minimal; Edgar mentions growing up in Puerto Rico.
Quietly joyful and triumphant. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781534499942
Page Count: 144
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: tomorrow
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A stellar collaboration that introduces an important and intriguing individual to today’s readers.
Two bestselling authors imagine the boyhood of the man who became the legendary boxing icon Muhammad Ali.
Cassius was a spirited child growing up in segregated Louisville, Kentucky. He had a loving home with his parents and younger brother, Rudy. Granddaddy Herman also was an important figure, imparting life lessons. His parents wanted him to succeed in school, but Cassius had difficulty reading and found more pleasure in playing and exploring outdoors. Early on, he and Rudy knew the restrictions of being African American, for example, encountering “Whites Only” signs at parks, but the brothers dreamed of fame like that enjoyed by Black boxer Joe Louis. Popular Cassius was especially close to Lucius “Lucky” Wakely; despite their academic differences, their deep connection remained after Lucky received a scholarship to a Catholic school. When Cassius wandered into the Columbia Boxing Gym, it seemed to be destiny, and he developed into a successful youth boxer. Told in two voices, with prose for the voice of Lucky and free verse for Cassius, the narrative provides readers with a multidimensional view of the early life of and influences on an important figure in sports and social change. Lucky’s observations give context while Cassius’ poetry encapsulates his drive, energy, and gift with words. Combined with dynamic illustrations by Anyabwile, the book captures the historical and social environment that produced Muhammad Ali.
A stellar collaboration that introduces an important and intriguing individual to today’s readers. (bibliography) (Biographical novel. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-49816-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown and HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
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