Sports are a metaphor for life in Sweeney’s outing (Spirit Window, 1998, etc.) where naïveté and trust meet up with unbridled ambition. Expectations are high for Corey’s basketball team to win the title, but they need one more player in their starting line-up. Noah is new, from Georgia and suspected of racism by the black players. He’s got such a good outside shot that Corey swings the whole team—except best friend Luke—into voting him in. High-school sports throughout the country vary somewhat, but few coaches would be so willing to pass such control to players, and this coach is one smart cookie. Gulp that implausibility and the access players have at half-time to kids not on the team and you’re off. There’s just enough play-by-play basketball to satisfy sports enthusiasts, but the emphasis is on Corey’s education via the dirty work Noah is willing to dish out to not only play, but also to play first string and his preferred position, center. Corey has two sisters, one younger, vulnerable, and wise beyond her years, the other shortly to be married, and totally self-centered, but not as Machiavellian as Noah. The parents, as in most YA novels, are mostly invisible, and the romantic entanglements serve to complicate the friction surrounding who plays and who doesn’t, but never demand the spotlight. Characters are appealing and less one-dimensional than in typical sports fare. Everything happens quickly and the message is valuable, if occasionally less than subtle. Kids who have played on teams will enjoy exploring the complexities of team dynamics, and basketball enthusiasts will simply lap this one up. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-890817-54-6
Page Count: 225
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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