A satisfying, winning read.
Nick Hall is a bright eighth-grader who would rather do anything other than pay attention in class.
Instead he daydreams about soccer, a girl he likes, and an upcoming soccer tournament. His linguistics-professor father carefully watches his educational progress, requiring extra reading and word study, much to Nick’s chagrin and protest. Fortunately, his best friend, Coby, shares his passion for soccer—and, sadly, the unwanted attention of twin bullies in their school. Nick senses something is going on with his parents, but their announcement that they are separating is an unexpected blow: “it’s like a bombshell / drops / right in the center / of your heart / and it splatters / all across your life.” The stress leads to counseling, and his life is further complicated by injury and emergency surgery. His soccer dream derailed, Nick turns to the books he has avoided and finds more than he expected. Alexander’s highly anticipated follow-up to Newbery-winning The Crossover is a reflective narrative, with little of the first book’s explosive energy. What the mostly free-verse novel does have is a likable protagonist, great wordplay, solid teen and adult secondary characters, and a clear picture of the challenges young people face when self-identity clashes with parental expectations. The soccer scenes are vivid and will make readers wish for more, but the depiction of Nick as he unlocks his inner reader is smooth and believable.
A satisfying, winning read. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-57098-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Preteen twins Coke and Pepsi McDonald find themselves battling for their lives while visiting some of America’s premier roadside attractions. The prospect of a summer trip from California to Washington, D.C., in a rented RV has the twins underwhelmed—until several murder attempts make a getaway considerably more appealing. It seems that Coke and Pepsi have been unknowingly co-opted into a Secret Government Program, and their first mission is simply to stay alive as mysterious assassins follow them and their oblivious parents on a wandering itinerary from Nevada’s Singing Sand Dunes to the SPAM Museum in Austin, Minn., to the rococo House on the Rock in Iowa County, Wisc. Encouraging readers to follow along, Gutman tucks Google Map directions and small photographs into the margins while salting his tale with coded messages and rousingly icky brangles involving the RV’s septic system and a giant tank of liquefied SPAM, along with his usual generous measures of quick action and snarky repartee. He also leaves the McDonalds with at least 1,000 more miles of giant statues and other local wonders to visit—so stay tuned for Part Two. (Adventure. 10-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-182764-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A simply drawn picture of a shameful chapter in this country’s race relations, sharing a theme with Ken Mochizuki’s classic,...
In episodic bursts, a Nisei lad describes two and a half years of making do in a World War II–era relocation camp.
Swept off his family’s West Coast farm in the wake of Pearl Harbor and resettled along with thousands of other Japanese Americans in Arizona, 12-year-old Tetsu quietly waits with his mother and his beloved little sister, Kimi, for his father, who has been interned in another camp. At Gila River, he makes friends and enthusiastically pitches in to clear and construct a baseball field. When he accidentally allows Kimi to run off into the desert and she comes down with a severe case of Valley Fever, he drops off the team and even discards his treasured Mel Ott glove. Incorporating information and specific incidents drawn from interviews with former camp residents, Fitzmaurice has Tetsu describe his experiences and feelings in restrained vignettes threaded with poetic language—“Kimi looked at me with those eyes that always found the good part of things.” The outlook does brighten at last after his father appears as the war winds down, and Tetsu picks up bat and glove again in time to compete against other camps’ teams.
A simply drawn picture of a shameful chapter in this country’s race relations, sharing a theme with Ken Mochizuki’s classic, angry Baseball Saved Us (1993) but less an indictment than a portrait of patience in adversity. (afterword, source list) (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-01292-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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