A fine teaching tool that offers advice for getting through a golf game—and through life.
In this debut middle-grade fantasy novella, a young girl plays through an adventurous golf course that teaches her as much about herself as it does about the sport.
When 9-year-old Skyler accidentally falls into a puddle in her backyard, it transports her to an engaging fantasy world called “the Puddle Club.” The first beings that she encounters are an eager golf ball named Ralphie and an astute gopher named Par. The latter explains that the only way for Skyler to return home is to complete the local golf course, and he equips her with the necessary equipment and wisdom to do so. But despite Par’s advice to go ahead and start playing, Skyler feels the need to first stop by Practiceopolis. She’s excited by the energy in this busy “paradise golf park,” but after the workers there pressure her into buying top-notch golf equipment and practicing an absurd amount of time, she decides to go ahead and start the course. She and Ralphie make their way from hole to hole, facing obstacles such as distracting “Yip” trolls, the sandy Pit of Doom that has a mind of its own, and the dreaded Gustina, “the wind goddess of golf.” Skyler makes plenty of mistakes along the way but also learns valuable lessons, the most important of which is this: “When you’re in the game and things start to look impossible…you gotta jump right in and play through.” McGruther and Russell’s book is, in equal parts, entertaining, educational, and inspiring. They describe the scenery of the Puddle Club with delightful detail and creative wit, and the clear plot gives readers a constant sense of direction despite all of its thrilling diversions. The book is also full of vital insights for new golfers, including three simple questions to ask oneself before every hole. Many of its lessons reach far beyond the realm of golf, however, highlighting the importance of purposeful focus, the dangers of perfectionism, and the joy that can come from seeking improvement.
A fine teaching tool that offers advice for getting through a golf game—and through life.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-95969-5
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Hosel & Ferrule Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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