An earnest first novel with a solid message about finding out who you are on your own terms.
Dillon’s dad wants him to play football, his crew wants him to freestyle, but all he wants to do is dance, dance.
Seventh grade proves to be anything but boring for 12-year-old Dillon Parker. A bench warmer on his school’s football team, Dillon dances with his freestyle crew, the Dizzee Freekz, while secretly longing for the training and technique that can gain him admittance to Dance-Splosion, a prominent Tennessee studio. His crew members, studio dropouts themselves, loathe the restrictions of structured dance and see an opportunity to concoct a perfect revenge prank on their old studio. Dillon must audition for a coveted dance scholarship, win it, and use his acceptance speech to belittle Dance-Splosion and its silly rules. All goes according to plan until Dillon, under the tutelage of Dance-Splosion’s best and haughtiest ballerina, starts to enjoy the dancer he’s becoming. Benjamin’s debut novel is a cross between Step Up and Mean Girls, with all of the requisite tropes found in a school drama, from arrogant cheerleaders and dimwitted jocks to anti-establishment rebels. The novel convincingly captures the herd mentality of the middle school years, when children rely on their friends to dictate how they dress and what their dreams should be, but some individual characterizations are less finely drawn than they should be. With the exception of the charismatic Haitian-Greek leader of Dillon’s crew, the novel is not notably diverse.
An earnest first novel with a solid message about finding out who you are on your own terms. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-51250-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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