An uplifting, freewheeling ode to the bond between a parent and child.
A father and son attempt the bike ride of their lives in this inspirational novel.
Alex Peterson is like most 11-year-old boys—he just wants to be included, to hang out with his friends, and be like his brother, a great baseball player. But his disability, a leg injury from a tree-climbing accident, holds him back from the latter, so he mostly stays at home and composes music. At school, he deals with bullies and mockery all day long. One day, he learns about the STP, a 200-mile, single-day bike ride that takes riders from Seattle to Portland, Oregon. He quickly becomes obsessed with the idea of completing the race, despite the obstacles he faces. Alex’s father, Rob, was once a competitive cyclist, but gave up on it long ago. Fortunately, his son’s passion for the sport slowly revitalizes his interest, and the two decide to make the journey together. However, getting Alex up to speed for such a race proves to be difficult, and he and Rob nearly succumb to a series of trials along the way. Alex won’t quit, though, because he’s determined to accomplish something that “not a whole lot of other people in the world have ever done.” Blunt’s (Passport, 2008) background as a cyclist is unsurprising, because he writes about riding in a way that shows his clear love for the sport. More importantly, though, he paints Alex as a fully fleshed-out character—a person in pain with hopes and dreams, as well as the perseverance to fulfill them. Rob’s well-developed back story and Alex’s drive combine to make a powerful cocktail, and it’s wonderful to watch the father-son duo reach new heights together. Overall, it’s an inspiring story that spans generations.
An uplifting, freewheeling ode to the bond between a parent and child.Pub Date: March 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9766596-4-8
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Pelican Crossing Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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