A positive, uplifting story that, despite its occasionally distracting style, will entertain young readers.
In this debut children’s story told in the form of an epic poem, an English priest fields a team in a soccer tournament to raise money for necessary church repairs.
Father Patrick needs to fix Saint Matilda’s leaky roof and broken steps but has no money to do so. He decides to audition the best and brightest children in his small town for a soccer team—or, as the English author and characters refer to it, football. Father Patrick wants them to compete in the newly organized Churches Cup tournament. The team, called the Bees, travels all over rural England to showcase their talents against other young teams. However, despite Father Patrick’s superior coaching and such players as the tall, talented striker Bonnie and the speedy winger “Running Man” Roy, the Bees’ cup run is rife with challenges. Will they manage to stay undefeated long enough to make it to the final and earn the repair money? Ringland tells this sweet tale as a rhyming story, but inconsistencies in rhyme and rhythm make some phrases clunky and awkward (“He pulled up the minibus outside his church; at ten minutes past eight / And the parents who were already there did not have to wait”). As a result, some readers may feel that the author might have been better off writing a simple prose tale. However, young soccer fans and players will likely enjoy the Bees’ exciting exploits and may even want to try Father Patrick’s free-kick techniques on the pitch themselves. The story is definitely at least a goal’s worth of fun.
A positive, uplifting story that, despite its occasionally distracting style, will entertain young readers.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1478386315
Page Count: 82
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An auspicious ending may seem a bit unlikely to some, but this novel has many appealing aspects that will draw readers in.
Fifteen-year-old Zeke gets a job and becomes involved with community organizers who aim to unionize local food-service workers in this novel in verse for reluctant readers.
Zeke hates their lives in the city with Paul, his alcoholic mom’s abusive boyfriend, a hypocritical Christian, and he misses his old home in small-town Wisconsin. Spurred to action by the idea of making enough money for them to move back, he takes a job at Casa de Pizza, where he comes to understand the desperate circumstances many of his minimum-wage–earning co-workers face. Zeke keeps the job secret, fearing Paul will try to steal his earnings. Pagelong free-verse poems evocatively describe Zeke’s experiences and quickly propel the story forward. The dynamics between the employees at Casa de Pizza (Zeke and several others are white, Timothy is black, Hannah is originally from Oaxaca) will be recognizable to teens who’ve worked in food service. Readers will easily sympathize with the all-too-true-to-life situations with which the characters are coping—racism and sexual harassment, Zeke’s awful home life, and a co-worker’s eviction with her children among them. Though short, this story develops the characters’ personalities, sketches in the history of the labor movement, and includes a subdued romantic subplot, effectively balancing these various elements.
An auspicious ending may seem a bit unlikely to some, but this novel has many appealing aspects that will draw readers in. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5383-8260-8
Page Count: 202
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An intimate novel that beautifully confronts grief and loss.
It’s 1983, and 13-year-old Indian American Reha feels caught between two worlds.
Monday through Friday, she goes to a school where she stands out for not being White but where she has a weekday best friend, Rachel, and does English projects with potential crush Pete. On the weekends, she’s with her other best friend, Sunita (Sunny for short), at gatherings hosted by her Indian community. Reha feels frustrated that her parents refuse to acknowledge her Americanness and insist on raising her with Indian values and habits. Then, on the night of the middle school dance, her mother is admitted to the hospital, and Reha’s world is split in two again: this time, between hospital and home. Suddenly she must learn not just how to be both Indian and American, but also how to live with her mother’s leukemia diagnosis. The sections dealing with Reha’s immigrant identity rely on oft-told themes about the overprotectiveness of immigrant parents and lack the nuance found in later pages. Reha’s story of her evolving relationships with her parents, however, feels layered and real, and the scenes in which Reha must grapple with the possible loss of a parent are beautifully and sensitively rendered. The sophistication of the text makes it a valuable and thought-provoking read even for those older than the protagonist.
An intimate novel that beautifully confronts grief and loss. (Verse novel. 11-15)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304742-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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