Solidly drawn, both on and off the court.
"Triple threat" Alex Myers turns his attention from football to basketball in this middle volume (The Walk On, 2014).
Alex's journey through basketball season is initially episodic. First, Alex and his teammate Jonas Ellington are forced to play junior varsity because gruff Coach Archer doesn't see football commitments as valid reasons for missing basketball practice. When they finally do join the varsity team, the boys—both freshmen—easily outplay their senior teammates, causing resentment. Meanwhile, Alex shyly courts Christine Whitford, a tenacious reporter for the school newspaper, and deals with the fallout from his parents' divorce, including a budding romance between Coach Archer and Alex's mom. When Max Bellotti, a transfer student whose own parents are divorcing, arrives midseason, the team finally has enough skilled players to be competitive. The story coalesces around Max's disclosure—first to Alex, Jonas, and Christine, and later to the general public—that he is gay. In contrast to older teen sports coming-out stories (Bill Konigsberg's 2008 Out of the Pocket, for example), the team stands largely united behind Max. In fact, some of Alex's retorts to nosy outsiders' questions read like a tutorial for supporting someone who is coming out. Woven into these many interpersonal story arcs are suspenseful and well-dramatized sports action scenes.
Solidly drawn, both on and off the court. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-75350-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Despite its potential, though, it’s likely that the book will have limited appeal.
Goelman’s debut novel, part summer-camp tale, part ghost story and part murder mystery, is served with a sprinkling of math and a heavy dose of often-confusing Jewish orthodoxy.
Thirteen-year-old math and magic geek Dahlia reluctantly agrees to three weeks at a Jewish summer camp. There, the ghosts of two little girls visit her, and she begins to dream of David Schank, a young yeshiva student in New York in the 1930s. Soon, she realizes his spirit has possessed her; he is an ibur who needs her help to complete a task he began when alive. The novel alternates between David’s story, in which he first discovers and then fails to hide from the Illuminated Ones the 72nd name of God, and Dahlia’s, as she attempts to figure out what the ghosts and the spirit want and why the creepy caretaker won’t let any children into the camp’s overgrown hedge maze. A substantial cast of characters, multiple plot twists in both narrative storylines, some subplots that go nowhere, a golem, gematria or Jewish numerology, the cabala and more make this novel a challenging read. It’s certainly a refreshing change from the usual focus in middle-grade Jewish fiction on the Holocaust, immigrants and bar/bat mitzvahs, and the inclusion of a girl protagonist who loves math is also welcome.
Despite its potential, though, it’s likely that the book will have limited appeal. (Paranormal mystery. 12-15)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-47430-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Like Derrick, this series is off to a promising high school career.
A kid who’s got the moves needs the smarts to go with them.
Derrick may be just 15 and only entering high school, but Division I and even NBA dreams are not unrealistic—but first he has to make the starting squad at Marion East, the mostly black high school in his inner-city Indianapolis neighborhood. This means impressing the coach that his uncle blames for scotching his own NBA dreams years earlier. Readers won’t be as surprised as Derrick is when he is not automatically named to the starting five or when the coach insists that he stop relying on his dunk and practice shooting from a distance—and start learning how to be part of a team. Resentful, Derrick considers transferring to snooty Hamilton Academy, where he’s being energetically recruited and where his underemployed father has been promised a full-time custodian job. Waltman’s series opener (first of a planned four) features plenty of basketball action fueled by hoops slang that will set basketball-mad readers right onto the court. Derrick’s easy, colloquial narration occasionally leaves the court for scenes at home, where his parents struggle to make ends meet, and in school, where he cluelessly woos the beautiful Jasmine. Waltman’s lovingly sketched Indianapolis lends the tale further authenticity. The author avoids slam-dunk answers, leaving readers poised for the next book.
Like Derrick, this series is off to a promising high school career. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-935955-64-1
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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