Though a bit loosey-goosey off the field, this series opener is still an intriguing hybrid of football and sci-fi with...
Adventure and sports abound in this post-apocalyptic sci-fi debut.
It has been 10 years since Earthfall, and the human race, now all dark skinned with black hair, lives in moon colonies, some named from an assortment of East Asian or Middle Eastern derivations. Shinzo “Strike” Sazaki is captain of Taiko Colony’s Ultraball team. It’s a sport similar to football but played in mechanical Ultrabot suits that enhance players’ physical capabilities. Teams compete for colony pride, and the champions are set for life with fame and fortune. Strike is obsessed with winning this year, his past seasons having been marred by traitors paid off by Zuna, the corrupt governor of North Pole Colony, the richest one on the moon. When a talented player named Boom shows up from the mysterious Dark Side of the moon, Strike reluctantly recruits her despite doubts of her loyalty. Soon secrets begin to unravel, and the team finds itself playing for the survival of their entire colony. While there are plenty of twists to keep readers guessing, inconsistencies in the worldbuilding may have readers puzzling over the lunar political landscape, and occasional odd word choices jar the flow of text. Despite this, every Ultraball game is tightly written with great clarity.
Though a bit loosey-goosey off the field, this series opener is still an intriguing hybrid of football and sci-fi with plenty of butt jokes. (Science fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-280266-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
PROFILES
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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