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 TO SCREEN
An adventurous work whose authentic voice celebrates the outdoors and everyday heroism.
A summer spent summiting the Adirondacks allows a teenager to reckon with grief.
Thirteen-year-old Finn Connelly’s summer is off to a rocky start. In addition to several incomplete class assignments—including a poetry project about heroes—he’s facing vandalism charges after an angry outburst at the local cemetery. To avoid paying thousands in fines that his family can’t spare, he reluctantly agrees to the proffered alternative: climbing all 46 Adirondack peaks over 4,000 feet by Labor Day accompanied by Seymour, the enthusiastic dog who belonged to the woman whose headstone he damaged. As Finn attempts the hikes, he wrestles with what it means to be a hero, a term often used for his deceased father, a local hockey legend, New York City firefighter, 9/11 first responder, and paramedic who died on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic. This verse novel is engaging and easy to follow. It encompasses varied structures, like haiku, sonnet, and found poetry. Other ephemera, such as letters, recipes, and school progress reports, create visual breaks evocative of a commonplace book. The first-person narration vividly conveys a disgruntled teenager’s feelings, including moments of humor and contemplation. The novel wrestles with loss and legacy intertwined with weighty events, challenges, and themes—PTSD, alcoholism, toxic masculinity—and their resulting impact on Finn’s emotional well-being. The supporting characters are encouraging adult role models. Characters present white.
An adventurous work whose authentic voice celebrates the outdoors and everyday heroism. (author’s note) (Verse fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781547616398
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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