Young girls especially will be inspired by this volume and the bright future for women’s sports it portrays.
Debut author Rutherford looks at women’s professional sports and the social forces behind them.
“Why is the pro sports experience so different for a man versus a woman?” Though Rutherford concedes other benefits of sports—success in school, fitness, fun—money is clearly the most obvious indicator of disparity. “LeBron has more than a dozen different pairs of shoes named after him and more than eight million followers on Instagram.” Maya Moore, a leading player in the WNBA, “earns almost nothing compared with what LeBron makes” and is not as well-known. To find answers to her key question, Rutherford analyzes the historical lack of opportunity in girls sports, the role of Title IX in expanding opportunity, the role of television as a force in sports, and the impact key players have had on various sports. She adopts a “you can do it” tone, which is enhanced by full-page color action photographs, several interviews with sports stars, a multicolor design (which borders on garishness), and letting women speak for themselves in quotations on most pages. Addressing herself directly to young readers, as she does throughout the volume, the author says, “And the thing is, you have a role in this, too. The advancements we’re seeing start with kids like you.”
Young girls especially will be inspired by this volume and the bright future for women’s sports it portrays. (index, sources) (Nonfiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77147-160-2
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
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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