Though uneven, stirringly hits every despairing low and thrilling high of a sports movie.
Comics and baseball are all Dan needs—before the accident.
Things couldn’t really be going better for 13-year-old Dan. The Mira Giants have just qualified for the Western New York Double Elimination Tournament, and a new Captain Nexus comic is about to come out. Dan’s father is too busy for him these days, but it’s OK, because Dan shares comics and baseball and everything great with his best friend, Nate, the Giants’ amazing pitcher. So Dan’s world seems shattered when Nate is hit with a baseball during practice. Now Nate’s in a coma, and Dan’s falling apart. Maybe if he and Nate’s kid brother make a Captain Nexus fan-fiction comic, that will be the talisman that wakes Nate up? While Nate spirals through rage, fear, and magical thinking, he tries to draw lessons from his beloved comics. But if comics can’t save Nate, Dan’s got nothing left—except encouraging the now-underdog Giants through a series of inspiring speeches and cinematic epiphanies. Long passages describing the Captain Nexus comics are lovingly detailed, showing a passion for the art of the superhero comic, but these moments drag the action to a crawl; in a visual medium, the dynamism depicted would complement the baseball tropes, but in prose, they detract. Dan and most characters appear to be white, though it’s left unclear.
Though uneven, stirringly hits every despairing low and thrilling high of a sports movie. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294305-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It may be formulaic, but the comic byplay is often nicely gross, and the science talk dovetails with current pedagogical...
In a tale built on well-worn tropes and characters, Brown twists together an impending cross-country move, a budding friendship with a crusty old neighbor and some basic astronomy.
As part of a family that looks to the stars for its names, seventh-grader Arcturus Betelgeuse Chambers—Arty—knows his constellations but also believes that he can contact Martians with a contraption cobbled together from mirrors and a flashlight. His settled world is knocked askew first by the arrival of a secretive new neighbor with a spooky habit of sneaking off into the woods at night and then by the revelation that his father’s new job will require that the family move far away. The neighbor turns out to be, excitingly, Cash Maddux, an embittered ex-astronaut who never flew but still goes out to gaze at the heavens. Their shared interest brings the two together. The author outfits Arty with a comically inept friend (who learns grace at ballet school), a mom who copes with stress by baking and two stereotypical sisters with equally typecast friends to ridicule.
It may be formulaic, but the comic byplay is often nicely gross, and the science talk dovetails with current pedagogical fads. (appendix of Mars facts) (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61963-252-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not a heavy hitter but worthy of a spot in the starting lineup.
In a decided departure for baseball-themed novels, a middle schooler figures out that the game’s values are not always reliable guidelines for real life.
Casey is delighted when his dad, who runs a New Jersey camp for aspiring umpires, puts him in charge of You Suck, Ump! Day—a training exercise in which everyone in town is invited to fill the stands and harangue the students while they try to call a game. On the other hand, his mom is definitely benched in his mind for getting a divorce, and he’s disgusted to discover that sixth-graders at his new school aren’t permitted to write for the paper. But then a truly publication-worthy scoop drops into his lap: It seems that one of the trainees is a former major leaguer who quit under a cloud of drug-use suspicion. Vernick laces her tale with humor, plus credible insights into the truly difficult art and techniques of umpiring, as she leads her aspiring journalist to make some good choices in the wake of a realization that people (parents included) should have more than one chance to get their calls right. (As major league umpires’ calls will be challengeable in 2014, the metaphor isn’t as strong as it might be...but that’s not the author’s fault, and young readers will still see her point.)
Not a heavy hitter but worthy of a spot in the starting lineup. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-25208-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
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