A great read for sports aficionados at the upper-elementary reading level.
A boy finds the courage and confidence he needs to be a basketball champion in Barnett’s picture-book debut, featuring action-packed illustrations by veteran artist Root (Born and Bred in the Great Depression, 2011, etc.).
Sixth-grader Maxx is smaller than his teammates and never gets picked as a starter on the basketball team. Fellow player Oscar challenges him to help the team defeat the Barbarians, who’ve beaten them badly in the past. Maxx, despite his nerves, says he’ll be there to show what he can do. A fantastic two-page spread then shows Maxx walking through packed traffic as he makes a journey through New York City from his school to Harlem’s famous Rucker Park, where many basketball legends have played. There, some of the players—including Big Bounce, Johnny Magic, Slam Dunk Sally, Cloud Walker, Marvelous, and Bubblegum Bobby—take Maxx under their wings to teach him the tricks of the trade. It’s hard to determine if these players actually help Maxx improve his skills or if he just gets more confidence in his existing abilities by playing where the greats have played. Later, back at school, Maxx gets a chance to play in the fourth quarter against the Barbarians. He makes a no-look pass that almost results in success, but his teammate’s shot is no good and the Barbarians score. With only seconds left, “All of a sudden, Maxx’s shoes began to spark! / Smoke poured out of them. The hall went dark.” He then makes an incredible jump shot that decides the game. Root’s illustration style is realistic, and her images give the book a sense of action. They also depict a wonderfully diverse cast, featuring players of many races and both sexes. The rhyming text contains what may be unfamiliar vocabulary for some readers, particularly those who don’t play basketball (“Maxx proved clutch”). Basketball fans, though, will be right at home with the language and enjoy this story of a young boy striving to make a difference and succeeding.
A great read for sports aficionados at the upper-elementary reading level.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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