Hilarious, irreverent, and timely, highly recommended for sports fans, summer-camp alums, and preteen-years survivors
A new administrator’s efforts to remake an easygoing boys’ sports camp into an athletic powerhouse meet spirited resistance.
Loosely branded as a sports camp, Camp Avalon (aka Camp Average), unlike its better-funded competitors, doesn’t specialize in one sport. While directors annually remind campers about its sole baseball tournament win (1951), many activities aren’t competitive or even sports—until director Winston takes charge, canceling traditional events and activities and banning hot dogs and sugary cereals. After exhaustive athletic-aptitude testing, each camper is assigned a sport, which they’ll spend all day, every day, playing. Eleven-year-old Mack Jones, white, and Andre Jennings, a dark-skinned, talented pitcher, both land baseball, as does Nelson Ramos, YouTube celebrity toy-and-game reviewer, a baseball newbie with awesome hand-eye coordination. Winning trumps all: Poor test results consign brainy, well-liked Miles to keeping score and maintaining statistics. Led by Mack, who misses water-skiing, the kids rebel, spectacularly losing games against other camps. As Winston doubles down, adding “boot camp” practice, war escalates. The athletes grow dispirited—losing intentionally is still losing—but then Miles makes a discovery. Mack and friends are endearing, authentic tweens, their bond transcending sports. Camp, campers, and counselors (default white, with names conveying cultural diversity for the most part) are portrayed with unsentimental affection. Sports journalist Battle, past editor of Canadian children’s magazine Owl, brings a sharp, satirical eye to trends benign and otherwise in children’s sports.
Hilarious, irreverent, and timely, highly recommended for sports fans, summer-camp alums, and preteen-years survivors (. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: April 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77147-305-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stellar collaboration that introduces an important and intriguing individual to today’s readers.
Two bestselling authors imagine the boyhood of the man who became the legendary boxing icon Muhammad Ali.
Cassius was a spirited child growing up in segregated Louisville, Kentucky. He had a loving home with his parents and younger brother, Rudy. Granddaddy Herman also was an important figure, imparting life lessons. His parents wanted him to succeed in school, but Cassius had difficulty reading and found more pleasure in playing and exploring outdoors. Early on, he and Rudy knew the restrictions of being African American, for example, encountering “Whites Only” signs at parks, but the brothers dreamed of fame like that enjoyed by Black boxer Joe Louis. Popular Cassius was especially close to Lucius “Lucky” Wakely; despite their academic differences, their deep connection remained after Lucky received a scholarship to a Catholic school. When Cassius wandered into the Columbia Boxing Gym, it seemed to be destiny, and he developed into a successful youth boxer. Told in two voices, with prose for the voice of Lucky and free verse for Cassius, the narrative provides readers with a multidimensional view of the early life of and influences on an important figure in sports and social change. Lucky’s observations give context while Cassius’ poetry encapsulates his drive, energy, and gift with words. Combined with dynamic illustrations by Anyabwile, the book captures the historical and social environment that produced Muhammad Ali.
A stellar collaboration that introduces an important and intriguing individual to today’s readers. (bibliography) (Biographical novel. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-49816-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown and HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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