A wonderful narrative for readers who love baseball that also offers valuable lessons to those who don’t.
In Derr’s illustrated middle-grade novella, a boy must learn how to become a leader.
Eleven-year-old Luis is close friends with the kids on his coed baseball team, the McIntyre Manatees—but that hasn’t always been the case. In this book, he and his friends relive what happened when they first met a year ago, when Luis moved to Ohio from Texas. His parents encouraged him to join the local baseball team to ground him in familiar habits after the upheaval of a big move. He was new to the well-established Manatees and was shocked when the new coach picked him to be captain over kids who’d been on the team longer, and his teammates were similarly surprised. Only soft-spoken catcher Gary seemed to be on his side when he took up his position, and the hardest player to get along with was first baseman Jimmie, the biggest, strongest, and meanest kid on the team. As Luis and his teammates played through the season, they realized that winning games isn’t just about skill—it’s also about being able to work together. Readers follow Luis as he learns leadership skills in a smooth, well-paced narrative that models good communication and perseverance. They’ll find themselves rooting for the Manatees as the story builds and playoffs approach. A major letdown, though, is that Derr has players recounting playoff highlights after the fact rather than allowing readers to experience the game as it occurs. He also frames the novel as the story of Luis and Jimmie’s learning to become friends, which feels discordant at the end, when greater emphasis is on Luis’ growth as team captain. However, these aspects don’t spoil the joy of the story or the portrayal of the characters’ clear love for sports, which are evident in the text and grayscale line drawings by LaCoste, which are cartoonlike and expressive; characters are depicted with an array of skin tones.
A wonderful narrative for readers who love baseball that also offers valuable lessons to those who don’t.Pub Date: April 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781643712840
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Red Chair Press
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship.
A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge.
In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father. With her friends’ help, she is in training to defend her championship when they discover that another player, operating under the protection of High Consul Silla, is presenting herself as Legacy. She is so convincing that the real Legacy is accused of being an imitation. False Legacy has become a hero to the masses, further strengthening Silla’s hold, and it becomes imperative to uncover and defeat her. If Legacy is to win again, she must play her imposter while disguised as someone else. Winning at tennis is not just about money and fame, but resisting Silla’s plans to send more young people into brutal mines with little hope of better lives. Legacy will have to overcome her fears and find the magic that allowed her to claim victory in the past. This story, with its elements of sports, fantasy, and social consciousness that highlight tensions between the powerful and those they prey upon, successfully continues the series conceived by late basketball superstar Bryant. As before, the tennis matches are depicted with pace and spirit. Legacy and Javi have brown skin; most other characters default to White.
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949520-19-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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